I am not a complete idiot, having worked in IT for decades, but can someone orient me to the basics here…I started reading the thread about ultimate basic start up but it was too advanced for me.
I have never heard of Raspberry Pi; no idea what that is.
I have used Docker…but I mainly use my iMac as my personal computer, and would prefer not to corrupt it with development stuff (e.g. Docker).
I have a cheap Dell desktop that my kids reject as inadequate for video games now. I’m willing to wipe it out and boot it up as a new Ubuntu server if that is a good idea.
What’s my simplest path forward to installing Home Assistant and trying it out?
A Raspberry Pi is a low-cost single-board computer. I actually started with HA because I wanted to learn more about the Pi, and HA seemed like a good application for that.
But in your case, with that old desktop and a bit of Docker experience you ought to be able to set up a nice HA system that’ll be even more capable than anything on an RPi.
I initially tried home assistant running a VM on an old windows laptop. It was easy to get going just to try it out, but very slow. Older hardware and VMs, especially running Windows, dont mix well. I would not recomend it long term.
I then went to Ubuntu and home assistant container in docker. I went this way because the same machine can run other non home assistant software, like an NVR. It works well for me, but no addons, and much more complicated since many guides are for supervised/hassos with the addons.
With your older Dell, if you want to dedicate the machine to Home Assistant and not run anything else, you should be able wipe it and just install Home Assistant as the OS (aka HAOS), with acess to all addons, following the Generic x86-64 install instructions
Home Assistant would run very similar to running it on a Raspberry PI (which you really can’t find anywhere right now with the supply issues)
thank you…so in those instructions, method 2 to get the HAOS onto the dell hard drive. Do I create an ubuntu boot USB stick Create a bootable USB stick on Ubuntu | Ubuntu and then reboot the dell with that stick in it and, from the resulting ubuntu OS, proceed to repurpose the existing hard drive…then take out the USB stick and reboot up into HAOS?
I don’t know answer to your question as I don’t use haos but before you begin consider swaping your hdd to ssd if you don’t have it already. Also consider upgrading your memory. I have 8 gb of ram and nearly 5 gb of swap and around 7 gb is used.
I hear ya. I’m an old retired IT Architect from IBM and became curious about this HA thing and thought it would be fun. I bought a PI, downloaded and installed the self contained software (OS and application), decided on ONE thing to do at a time and turned it into quite the hobby.
Rule #1: Keep it simple and concentrate on doing one thing at a time.
Rule #2: Avoid annoying your significant other when you accidently turn the bathroom light off when she’s taking a shower.
Rule #3: Take your time. I’ve been playing here for 4 years now and am still learning new, really kool things to do.
The Home Assistant operating system is based on a very stripped down version of linux. That being said, it does not contain many wifi drivers.
I would do whatever you can to use the wired ethernet connection. Home Assistant over wifi is generally not recommended anyway as it is less stable. Your other option probably would be a cheap powerline adapter if the machine can’t be located near your router.
If you absolutely need that wifi working on that machine, you would likely need a different install method. I hate suggesting a supervised install to anyone, which is where Home assistant supervised runs on top of debian (and ONLY debian, not Ubuntu). However that would give you access to all the debian wifi drivers (or let you install one) and get your wifi working. It is a much more advanced install. Details are below.
Be sure to read all the requirements if you go down that rabbit hole
You could also do a container install like I mentioned, but there are no addons.
it occurred to me… the simplest solution is to just take the desktop w/o keyboard, monitor, or mouse, down to the cellar and plug it in to a port on the router and come back upstairs to see if it worked. It appears to have worked. I didn’t want another computer in the living room anyway!
Thats Good. You can use the samba and ssh addons to access files and the config from other machines on your network. It’s meant to run headless without monitor and keyboard anyway.
thanks…more basic questions…how do I add samba and set up ssh? Do I need to do that on the console or can it be done remotely through the web interface? I last did stuff like this like 25 years ago; feeling very rusty!
These are add-ons. They can be added right from the UI, under settings. The SAMBA add-on is probably the one I’d recommend everyone install first. Between that and the UI, you can do almost everything you need to manage HA. I rarely use SSH, but when I do it’s very convenient. Much better than hooking up a keyboard and monitor.
Of course once you’ve got those critical add-ons installed, you’ll no doubt find others you’d like to play with.