Need some direction/advice

OK Folks,

I am working towards a “SmartRV” build: lights, power monitoring, solar control, environmental monitoring, security, etc. I am a former HPUX/AIX admin, current HAM operator (W4CBL), and all-around DIY and electronics capable guy. I have a working knowledge of Linux and shell scripting. I have HA OS running on a NUC. It works well and I am “learning as I go” including node-red, DIY sensors and switches, esphome, mqtt, etc. I have already DIY’ed 2 relay/switch banks for lights and appliance controls and gotten them working in HA. I have the components and am about to start building DIY environmental and power monitoring.

Here’s the issue. I want to be able to do ALL HA-related stuff on the NUC: HA, EspTools, VS Code, Expressif IDE, Arduino IDE, python, etc. I have just come to realize how limited a HA OS install on a device is, in terms of using the OS for non HA tools etc.

So… the question(s) is/are as follows: 1) what Linux distro to use for HA? 2) VM or Docker (I know very little about either - they weren’t even a thing back in my admin days) and 3) Pros and Cons of either approach. I know I have alot to learn and am willing to do so, but could use some experienced guidance.

Thanks in advance!

IMHO, for someone who knows its way in Linux, the dest choice is the Container method, i.e. HA running in a single container of its own.

HassOS and supervised have very strict restriction on whay you can and cannot do on your Host.
VM is okay-ish, but a waste of resource if you don’t need the 'Addon" capabilities, basically.
Plain venv (the “Core” method) is okay-ish as well, but harder to maintain than docker.

Thanks for the reply. I DO need the add-on capabilities, so it is either HA OS in a VM, or Supervisor install in Docker.

Any thoughts on Linux flavor? Ive used Arch, Unbuntu, plain Debian, Mint, FreeBSD… I like Mint for a desktop and Ubuntu for a server (which this is/will be), but If I go the Supervisor route, HA only supports plain Debian. I do have the resources available to run HA OS in a VM, which is the “recommended” method… do you have a hypervisor you prefer? The choices are virtualbox, KVM, and VMware. I don’t know anything about any of them, so is one better or worse than another for CLI?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I use Debian as the main OS and then run HA supervised in a Docker container.
This give me option to run things like Debmatic for my Homematic IP heating and the like on the main OS with it is affecting HA.

I started out with Ubuntu as the main OS, but Raspberry Pi’s OS is a fork of Debian and since I use those too, then it was just too confusing having to mentally switch command sets when I switched terminal.
Nearly all packages that can be installed as addons to HA will be available as a Debian package, where the other distros might require a manual build and the configuration might have to be tweak compared to the guides on the web.
Debian is just straight forward.

Thanks, I appreciate the insights. I don’t mind Debian… I just like Ubuntu better :smiley:

I may go that route. I did some playing with my options… I did supervisor on Ubuntu in Docker and got it to work with a few issues. I tried supervisor on Debian in Docker and couldn’t get it to work, and I have tried HA OS in a VM under Ubuntu/Virtualbox. This is working the best so far but still has some issues. I am going to try HA OS in a vm under Ubuntu/KVM. Depending on how that goes, I may go back to the Debian/Docker method and just work through the multitude of issues.