@diyhouse
I’m waaay late to this party, but you are not alone in
I have to say I am really confused
It’s my personal opinion that Docker is the way to go. Having said that, not everybody understands Docker or how to use it. I much prefer it over a VM (VMWare, VirtualBox, LXC, etc) as any VM environment consumes more of your host’s resources than Docker. An “entire virtual computer” is created for each VM, with the exception of LXC. Although LXC is a bit heavier than Docker. Having said that, it’s certainly an option if your host’s resources allow for it. And I admit, I have several VM’s running. Docker on the other hand is much less resource demanding. It’s true that Docker Image size is a considering factor. But that’s much more manageable. Spinning up of a Docker Container is order or magnitudes faster than a VM too, within a few seconds. Then there’s the issue of passing USB Devices from the host to the VM Guest. It’s not always a simple and reliable exercise.
Now to the point of installation methods. I have posted on the form similar confusion related to the many installation methods, supported vs unsupported, VM vs Docker, Core w/o Add-ons vs Supervised w/ Add-ons. And after a year or so, still somewhat foggy.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t understand the “Core only” vs “Supervised w/ Add-ons” thinking. Or to have a “Supported” install w/ Add-ons one must deploy a VM. BTW, I recently tried this w/ VirtualBox Headless and have been unsuccessful in passing a USB Device for Z-Wave. Let me clarify, I understand the Supervised in the context of managing the entire “suite”. There certainly needs to be a framework to manage all the moving parts. I don’t, however, understand who would want to install just the Core. Perhaps someone else can elaborate on that use case. If one doesn’t want to “install/enable” an Add-on, don’t. But for those that do, they can. Not everyone who installs Microsoft Office uses PowerPoint.
Another peeve is that I personally don’t want to dedicate an entire computer resource to HA when I have perfectly good hardware resources available on my Ubuntu Server running Docker. One that already has been set up so as to easily manage backups, has an UPS, doesn’t require another switchport, etc. This also dovetails off of the changes in the hardware available these days and the sensible shift to better utilize those new hardware resources. Hence, many shops/organizations have completely revamped their deployments to use, yes VM’s, but more so in the last few years, Docker and Kubernetes. And for good reason. We no longer look to have to dedicate an entire bare metal server to one purpose. Or if a multi purpose server has a service bork the filesystem, I don’t have loose the other services running and thereby rebuild an entire server because of one service.
So me personally, I would love to see a Supported installation based on Core w/ Add-ons using Docker. But that’s my wish. I know there are other use fair cases and opinions.
Finally, if I understand your last comments relating to the supervised install directory… All you have to do is pass the --data-share option to redirect the install from the default location (/usr/share/hassio) to your desired location.
For example:
I set up all my servers to use a services-admin user. I install all my Docker services under that services-admin user in /home/services-admin/DockerServices. So to install in a location of my choosing (on an Intel or AMD x86_64), I would run:
curl -o hassio_supervised_docker_installer.sh -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/home-assistant/supervised-installer/master/installer.sh
chmod +x hassio_supervised_docker_installer.sh && ./hassio_supervised_docker_installer.sh --machine qemux86-64 --data-share /home/services-admin/DockerServices/home_assistant.
The Docker Supervised installation will be installed to /home/services-admin/DockerServices/home_assistant vs the default location.
Best
,… but why is this not available in HA-supervised and apparently no mosquitto … rather than the tasmoto, mosquitto mqtt stuff… confusing…
