Hi, I am new to a lot of this (although I have several Sonoff and Blitzwolf switches and Google Home). But I would like to install Home Assistant on my spare Sony Vaio (VPCW21S1E) with Linux Mint 20 (Xfce 64 bit).
Can someone help me a bit on how to install what? Thanks in advance.
Thx, but I don’t have a Raspberry Pi so what should I take?
You’ll want to use the Docker install: https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/installation/docker/
Very easy to do and easy to maintain.
If you have full control you could go with Linux Debian and install the supervised version of Home Assistant - Installing Home Assistant Supervised on Debian 10
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Thx, but this implies that I install Debian instead of Linux Mint? I already took the xfce option, because my Vaio is limited and not so fast. I don’t mind trying but then need to overwrite my os.
I guess Docker might be the easiest?
Although I don’t use a laptop but an Intel NUC, I wanted to keep it simple and also usable for other things (as the computer stays on day and night), so my setup is:
Home Assistant on top of Hass.OS in a Virtual Box session in a regular Windows 10. I use Anydesk for remote control (dumped Teamviewer).
There is also a Zigbee2MQTT stick (ZZH) connected to the NUC. At the moment there are about 30 zigbee devices (most xiaomi sensors) and about 40 wifi devices (Sonoff’s and others) connected to HA.
You probably can start flame wars about the “best” virtual HA setup 
, but this setup suits me fine. (I’m more handy with windows than Linux, and use the NUC with Windows for other things as well).
It works for almost 6 months now and I’m very happy with the speed, stability and usability.
Also have a separate Linux Mint running in a Virtual Box for special jobs.