I'm done with Home Assistant Core - Should I run HA OS or something else?

Installation
1

I have a raspberry pi 4 that I use for home automation and some misc services. I’m running HA core and I’m getting tired of dealing with dependency problems with upgrade - HA often needs a newer version of python than is available in the current version of Raspberry Pi OS.

Is there any argument against running HA OS? It definitely sounds like the easiest way to run HA. I’d like to run other services on the device too. Perhaps some of those will be made available via HA OS addons.

Running HA via docker would be another possibility but it sounds like I’d need to manage a series of docker containers. No thanks…at very least I don’t see the benefit of having control at that level.

Perhaps I should run HA OS in a VM if I want to run services not available via HA OS.

Any thoughts appreciated. I’m in a place where I really need to minimize tinkering with HA installs.

2

I went with docker containers. It’s a hype that containers based instalation needs some special knowledge or dealing with a bunch of containers. You can create docker-compose file, dump in it your config and that’s it.
You can even make it check/pull new versions automatically with out you doing anything to it.
The drawback is accessing containers over nabu casa like you can access addons over it, at least for me.

3

You said that you’re already running additional services on the Pi, and running HA in a container doesn’t force you to run more containers - just keep doing what you were doing. It sounds like running HA in a container is the best path for you.

4

I’m running ha supervised on Debian, which allows me to use the entire ha spectrum incl hacs. Reason I chose this over container is that I didn’t know how easy it would be to get eg the conbee II to work with containers (probably not difficult BTW, just trying to avoid potential complexities at my end).
hth

5

If you have the capability I’d recommend HASSOS in a VM. That’s what i do. You give up some flexibility in that you can’t install extra OS packages on a whim. You’re limited to the HA official add-ons and integrations. But then, that’s what makes it a reliable platform.

6

…and HACS too which is mighty useful.

7

I am using an old computer with proxmox and them I’m using virtualization to run haos core

8

HACS has nothing to do with the type of install you run. It’s available to all of them.

9

You can run hacs in any installation method.

Oops, what @finity said.

10

I wasn’t clear. I’m not suggesting it isn’t available to non-HASSOS variants. I’m saying it’s a way of adding functionality to a HASSOS install.