Instructions can't be followed from HA website regarding Virtualbox installation

From the website:

  • For VirtualBox create a new virtual machine, select “Other Linux (64Bit), assign it at least 2 GB of memory and “Use an existing virtual hard disk file”, select the VDI file from above, afterwards edit the “Settings” of the VM and go “System” then Motherboard and Enable EFI, then “Network” “Adapter 1” Bridged and your adapter.

I downloaded the VDI file from above as instructed. However, I am unable to use the file. I get the error:

Could not get the storage format of the medium ‘C:\Users\USER\Downloads\hassos_ova-4.13.vdi.gz’ (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

I suspect it is because the file is *.gz but I’m just following the instructions as provided and I’m stuck as to how to proceed.

I watched a yutube video for help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4XiO9Oejjc
However, his shows up as a VDI file, whereas mine does not.

I searched this installation subforum for the term, “virtualbox” and only one hit appeared and it was unrelated to *.gz files.

Thank you for your time.

Try unzipping it then.

Following the instructions I thought this was the way to unzip.

Flash the downloaded image to an SD card using balenaEtcher.

But I get this error: 2020-09-12_23h46_21

Which page are you following?

Straight from the official website:

Install Home Assistant:

  • Flash the downloaded image to an SD card using balenaEtcher. If using a Pi, we recommend at least a 32 GB SD card to avoid running out of space.
  • Load the appliance image into your virtual machine software. (Note: You are free to assign as much resources as you wish to the VM, please assign enough based on your add-on needs)
  • For VirtualBox create a new virtual machine, select “Other Linux (64Bit), assign it at least 2 GB of memory and “Use an existing virtual hard disk file”, select the VDI file from above, afterwards edit the “Settings” of the VM and go “System” then Motherboard and Enable EFI, then “Network” “Adapter 1” Bridged and your adapter.

You don’t need to write any image to an SD card to install HA in virtualbox. Those docs are not right I think.

I didn’t think it sounded right but because it said “if using a Pi”, I thought that it was intended for VM installation.

The docs may be a bit confusing there, however I think they are right. These are 2 different steps for different hardware, the first is for the pi, the second is for any VM image. But I agree that this is not really clear and they could need an overhaul, but who will do this? …

Anybody who understands what they should be and is willing to invest the few minutes required :wink:

Done, I hope it is OK.

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It was more a rhetorical question and I see now that nick already fixed it.

And it has been merged :slight_smile:

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Big thanks to @nickrout and @Burningstone for their help and assistance. I have it up and running!

  • For the device images: Flash the downloaded image to an SD card using balenaEtcher. If using a Pi, we recommend at least a 32 GB SD card to avoid running out of space.
  • For the virtual appliance images: Load the appliance image into your virtual machine software. (Note: You are free to assign as much resources as you wish to the VM, please assign enough based on your add-on needs)
  • For VirtualBox create a new virtual machine, select “Other Linux (64Bit), assign it at least 2 GB of memory and “Use an existing virtual hard disk file”, select the VDI file from above

Does BalenaEtcher decompress *.gz files? When I followed the instructions before for the pi, I didn’t have to unzip the *.gz file. I think that led to my confusion in understanding for the virtual machine process that it needed to be decompressed.

His reply was for me and I don’t feel offened or anything like this. It was probably even a hint for me to do it myself, as I’m a very frequent forum poster :smiley:

Tinkerer is an admin, he’s not a member of the core home assistant dev team, meaning all his valuable contributions and the help he provides has been done in his free time.

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Yes and no, Balena can work with certain compressed format such as bzip, gzip or xz but it doesn’t work with .tar archives.
The Pi image is an .img.gz file, which is supported by Balena.

It wasn’t directed at you… it was directed at the person I’d quoted (or anybody else who knew the answer).

Sometimes the docs don’t make sense because they were written by people who knew how it all worked, and so didn’t include things because they were assumed. That’s unhelpful, but it needs people like you to come along and go these instructions are broken so that somebody who can work out what’s missing can update it.

It’s not uncommon for people to identify what needs doing, but then wait for somebody else to do it, hence my poke that somebody shouldn’t wait for somebody else to do it.

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Post edited. My apologies.