Installation Recommendations on Mac Mini (2012)

Installation
1

I have an old Mac Mini which I am planning to move my HA over to.

I was wondering which installation method people would recommend.

I am currently using the Home Assistant Operating System which I would like continue to use as I make use of the snapshots and addons.
Is it possible install HA OS directly on the Mac Mini or would be be better to run linux as a base OS?

Thanks in advance!

2

I could never figure out how to get the HA OS to run on the bare metal.

I installed Ubuntu and then ran HA on VirtualBox. Seemed to work OK, but I never used it in ‘anger’ just to see if it was an option when migrating from a RPi3.

Eventually went with HA running native on a NUC instead, but I do still have the Mac as a backup.

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3

I ran HA on a RPi4 in the past, but decided to move it to an old HP laptop.
I chose to install Debian on it, since Raspbian is a Debian with a few minor modifications, and I have been able to use all the guides on the net regarding Raspbian as if I was actually running on that one.
My backups (since snapshots seems to be political incorrect these days) from the RPi4 was imported without a problem.

Its of course no a Mac I am using, but I think Debian is available for Macs too.

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4

I’ve been running Home Assistant on a Mac Mini from around 2012 for the past year. I installed Ubuntu and can dual boot between Ubuntu and the Mac OS (I rarely use the Mac OS but still have it there in case) I followed this guide:

I do not use a VM or supervised install and installed docker and just Home Assistant container. This means I don’t have the “official” addons or supervisor, but all the equivalent addons I use (zwavejs2mqtt, Swag/Nginx, zigbee2mqtt, adguard, portainer, wireguard, and Nodered) were all able to be installed separately in Docker. I generally managed all the containers, including Home Assistant upgrades, through Portainer which has a nice web interface.

It was a pain to set it all up but once I got everything running the system has been very stable, quick, and CPU/memory usage is minimal. I also run a Shinobi NVR on it - so using Ubuntu with Home Assistant container gives me flexibility to install any other programs I want.

The VM method mentioned above will probably work as well, but will likely use more resources then using just docker. The Mac Mini should be able to handle that though if you want to keep Home Assistant OS/supervised.

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5

I installed Home Assistant on a Late 2014 Mac Mini,
Removed the HDD and used etcher to load Generic x86-64
inserted hdd and it started right up, no problems whatsoever.

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6

I have now played around with a Mac Mini 2012 and it can be used for HA, but there is a few things you need to know.
First you might have problems with a hass.io installation, since the drivers for the Mac Mini are not included in that build.
Installing Ubuntu or Debian is recommended and then maybe use a supervised docker setup.

My MacMini has a BroadCom WIFI card and that requires extra drivers in Debian, which is not hard to install, so more a little heads to remember it.

My MacMini also has an Intel i915 chipset, but its Apple branded, and that can cause a few problems.
The detection of the devices provided by the chipset is bugged, so the detection routine has a 60 seconds timeout builtin, which means your sound devices might not be able until the 60 seconds timeout has been reached. I have added a 60 seconds delay in the service startup file.

The design is for normal use quite quite, but if the load rise then the fan starts to make a lot of noise quite fast, which can occur when backup is running or if you scan a large media library.

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7

This created problems for me, and several Ubuntu routine software updates broke the wifi driver because it wasn’t officially supported. It took a lot to figure out how to reinstall the driver and to get it working again, which is especiallya pain because the machine completely loses internet access when the wifi driver breaks.

The USB kept being a problem too, and I started having the zigbee and zsticks lock up and drop out. I don’t know what went wrong but running dmesg showed all sorts of USB errors.

Since I first posted here a few months ago, the Mac mini setup became unstable enough where I abandoned it and now run home assistant container over Ubuntu on a newer refurbished Dell Optiplex. It’s much more stable now.

8

I prefer cabled connections whenever its possible, so I have luckily not experienced the issues you describe.
I have also chosen to use the MacMini as a jukebox for my Snapcast and Icecast services, which limits the usage of devices being used. I pretty much only need the CPU, RAM, SSD and network for this to work. I am using the sound card though, but I can live with the 60 seconds delay in availability of the mediaplayer when the server boots.

I would generally never recommend an Apple for anything but Apple OSes and apps.
Apple has always tried to make their own standards, so you will be fighting their beliefs in how the world should be.
Microsoft had to save them once due to this strategy and they still do it and they will fail again.

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