Hi Team, first time poster here, just ordered my re-furb PC and it seems as I am best to use a couple of USB drives to convert to Linux and to install Home Asst.
What size of these USB drives do I need.
Also is there any issue in completely overwriting Windows on this machine if I ever wanted to go back to Win10 and use it for general office use. Basically is this an easilhy reversable process?
Whatever size is convenient. 16GB is more than enough and you really don’t even need that. If you plan to store video or other files unrelated to HA youll need to size appropriately for that
Your buying a new drive correct? Just remove the current and store it somewhere safe.
This confuses me. A PC usually has Hard Disk drive(HDD) or EMMC or solid state drive(SSD). Im not sure if by USB you are meaning these or literally external USB stick or storage device. You should be replacing the internal storage unless there is some physical or functional limitation. SDD or EMMC is great but HDD is just as good honestly.
honestly I wouldn’t even go this far - Load VirtualBox on the Windows Machine, give it a 250G virtual disk and load HAOS in it.
Thank you very much tmjpugh
This was just a question about the install, not usage. (quite correct I do hope to be able to use Frigate or something similar for video - but do not know about storage methods - that is for another question!)
So I am buying a re-furb PC that comes with windows 10 on it. It also has an SSD drive. I plan to use this machine purely for Home Assistant and no other jobs so don’t think I need to install in a Virtual Machine.
I followed various install check lists and I thought that I needed 2 USB sticks, one effectively to overright Linux over the Windows operating system, then another to install HA on the machine after that.
Thanks Nathan. Virtual Box does look good from what I have read. However somebody said that if the machine decides to do a windows update and shutdown and restart this is a nuisance for HA. I have other PCs for regular jobs so was hoping to use my new re-furb machine for HA OS only and leave it on 24/7.
Yea. USB is temporarily used for the install of OS.
Are you install HAOS or HA container or other.
Ultimately you use the USB to install the OS (HAOs or linux) and after you should be able to download everything else.
No, you need one USB stick, flashed with a live Linux distribution. That one you use to boot the PC, download Etcher and HAOS, and flash HAOS to the internal SSD.
Thanks francisp - got that. 64 mb USB stick arriving shortly - I’ll see how I get on. Fergus