Suggesting Edits to Online Docs

Configuration
#1

New to HA. So new, in fact, that I don’t have it running yet – I’m spinning it up on a Pi4 as a docker container :).

I’ve run into some gaps in the current online documentation:

  • various scripts don’t seem to run properly, or at all, with the 64 bit version of Raspbian.
  • there are 3 ways offered to get zwavejs running in a docker container but I couldn’t find any discussion about how you’d choose between them (i.e., advantages and disadvantages)
  • if you use the docker-compose.yml route you must edit the yml file before running docker-compose because it requires you insert the USB by_id path…but the need to do that is buried in a later part of the documentation
  • running docker-compose as specified in the docs (docker-compose up) runs the container in the foreground. That’s probably not what you want to do. You can background it by running docker-compose up -d. I presume that daemonizes the container but haven’t verified that yet

BTW, thanx to How to set up ZWavejs2MQTT on a Raspberry Pi and integrate it with Home-Assistant - Flemming’s Blog (flemmingss.com) for pointing out how to configure the backgrounding.

What’s the process for suggesting edits to the online docs?

#2

First question, any particular reason you’re doing container on Raspbian?

Its hard enough to get Supervised running on a Pi, Curious as to why you’re going the container route. It goes to the answer of of some of yohr questions. (particularly the ones that ask about why choose A over B)

#3

There are links at the bottom of every documentation page.

#4

Hi Nathan. The reason is I want to run various other server software (e.g., dnsmasq, a minimalist web browser) on the Pi as part of a very small LAN for a vacation home. Having two different Pis, one running just HA and one doing the other stuff, would be overkill.

I considered using the Pi version of HA but it’s based on a customized version of linux and I’ve had a number of bad experiences configuring such custom OS environments to do the other things I want to accomplish.

#5

Thanx, Tom.

For others future reference, those links do exist at the bottom of each HA page…but not on the ZWavejs2MQTT doc pages. Which are not authored and maintained by the HA team. Fortunately you can submit feedback via the ZWavejs2MQTT github site.

#6

Do yourself a favor and let the HA team do their job on developing the “closed” version. :slight_smile: Not meant rude, believe me, but I’ve tried a few of the different ways to install HA.

The most stable one is HA-OS. :slight_smile: And believe me, I’ve tried a lot of things to avoid HA-OS. If for nothing else, than out of principle. I do know my way around Linux, but it really isn’t worth the try. :slight_smile: All my Pis and the rest of the gang here in my household/office are Linux, but HA - meh, HA-OS, simple install and of it goes. :rofl: :rofl:

Just my experience. If you really want something very “customy”, use a second machine (whatever suits you) for all the other stuff.

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#7

Understood.

And I agree with Paddy. It’s a massive PITA to get/keep a supervised install running on Rpi (im doing it now and im currently looking at un-doing that now)

Im about 80% of the way through my configuration, and I still have yet to find ‘additional server workloads’ that I personally need that aren’t already provided by a pre-built add-on.

Need Grafana, add-on
A Samba Daemon, add-on
Media player, VLC add-on
DHCP, yep an add-on
DuckDNS… Its an add-on
DNSmasq, yep its there too.
Many more.

All of them are available to be installed as mostly pre-configured add ons.

So if it’s just ‘I don’t want the pi idling and would like to use it for more’ sure! go right ahead but you don’t need to roll your own Debian (yes, real Debian, HA supervised is not supported on any other OS - even Raspbian) to do it

It simplifies admin so much thay in the event of a catastrophic failure, recovery for me now is as simple as:
install the latest Rpi HAOS image
Install the Google drive back up add-on
Restore full from latest known good
Restart twice (weird artifacts from something I haven’t figured out yet)
Takes less than an hour.

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#8

Could be part of my story. :rofl: I’m always in for an “experimental setup” (:rofl:), and I do try a lot of things, just out of curiosity or a job need, but the one thing I’m going the default way is HA.

One part of that decision may very well be that I recently experienced somef time without my HA, and I hate it. :rofl: Sleeping in a dump flat is nothing I’d want for longer (anymore).

Coming back to the initial post. :wink: What exactly is it, that you want/need to run on that PI and what do you want to achieve with it? I’m almost 100% sure, it was already talked about here in this very forum. The bundled worlwide knowledge about HA is gathered here! :rofl:

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