Sorry none of that makes any sense to me
Is that for my post ?
Agree there are many ways to install HA. That’s is why you need to try one that fits your preferences. In my case Debian + HA + Supervised version. Why? because I can have total control over my server for other purposes and not just HA.
MQTT and NodeRed is also preferences, since you do not need one or depend on whether you want more capability then yes it will give you more power over the just HomeAssistant
Again do it step-by-step and you will get there. Once you are on that stage for sure you just need to backup your setup and you should not have too much problem setting up again.
Just my 2cents
Don’t worry, Dominique. Me myself started in the early 90th from novell netware and found a home in the *nix-world since the late '90th with red hat, debian and later ubuntu and working as a professional system integrator and administrator ever since until today.
When I started fiddling around with a Raspi ~3 years ago (Pi-Hole tempted me into it) it felt somehow unreal and toyisch at the beginning. If you are used to *nix the learning curve is not that steep.
I advise you to simply start simple: Take your Raspi with an SSD card and install the Home Assistant Operating System onto it. Plain and simple.
Make yourself comfortable with it, not much that can go wrong here.
It wont take too long and you want more out of HA. Only then think about taking the next step. This way you’ll get a soft approch into the HA world which is not as painful as what you might have experienced until now.
Richard,
I love your approach, more pragmatic and professional.
Is there a big difference between Raspbian and Debian ? I’m not a Linux guy :’(
Currently, I succeeded in installing Raspbian on my SSD, not Debian (but you pointed out the issue with Debain 10 :))
I would indeed love to move everything on only one Raspberry.
Just install HassOS to keep it simple and setup all of those others functions through Add-ons. Why Node Red anyway?
You seem to be over complicating things far more than necessary and convincing yourself that it’s difficult. It’s not.
Tamsy,
I better understand your experience
Mine is OpenVMS (nearly dead) and Microsoft (3.0 => Server 2019) / VMware expert.
Diving in *nix is not as easy for me, even if I love scripting rather than the “click and pray”.
I want to build some reliable environment, easy to backup and reinstall (in case of) “I’m a server’s world guy”.
I will follow Richard’s advise (Debian if my Raspberry accepts it 
) + HA Supervised version + docker for MQTT / NodeRed / Grafana / …
Some think I don’t know what IT world is, they are totally wrong.
But I agree that I put my expectations very high (because I believe in Raspberry and HA)
I will follow both your advises.
Thanks for that.
Kind regards,
Dom
Debian is the official supported Linux for HA + Supervised version. Thats the only reasons.
People seem attracted to node red because you can click and drag things, but before long you need to use scripts and fiction nodes anyway and it becomes a lot harder, complex and messy than using automations natively in ha.
I even advise to leave out NR. This way you’ll get a deeper understanding of what is really going on when writing the code for automations by yourself. This forum with its fine user base but also the net is full of examples you can use as skeletons for your own scripts.
OK.
Any idea on the Debian version I need to download and use to run on my Raspberry ?
Tamsy,
I’ll follow your advise (leaving NR).
But, first, I need Richard’s help with the right Debian version to install
The version working well for the Pi4:
Build Date: 2021.02.10
Release: 10 (Buster)
Family: 4
Tested Hardware: Pi4 (4GB)
you’ll find here.
Just note to run
sudo apt-mark hold linux-image-arm64
immediately after the first Login and before running
apt update && apt upgrade -y as I described here
and you should be good.
Also I advise you to strictly follow this excellent guide.
After the base installation of HA as per instructions install Samba, Portainer and MQTT by following @kanga_who guide again at https://github.com/Kanga-Who/home-assistant/blob/9f437fb0043daaa6ed450ed0eec7da479cb1ff93/Install Samba%2C Portainer and MQTT.md
I have used above guides a couple of times and they are working like a charm.
You can try my scripts https://github.com/tirtadji-com/rpi_debian_ha_supervised
Make sure you follow my guide on the README.md
@DominiqueGEORGES I really don’t get it why you make this so complicated,
I about the same age, also working with IT and VMware and I’m not a linux guy myself either, but I started up HA from an image abt 1.5 years ago and it was a ‘set it and forget it’ experience for me, which took less then an hour.
Initially i used a raspberrypi, but needed it for something else, so i moved it to HyperV. I installed a new image, copied the snapshot and everything was as it used to be within 30 minutes, again a ’set it and forget it’ experience.
And I also use MQTT, NodeRed amd Zigbee.
Most time i use on ‘configuration’, as that can become complex, currently still trying to write my own custom integration, for which i need to adept HA’s python structure, but that is because i want to do it, and really hasn’t anything to do with HA itself
I don’t work in it. Never used Linux, and also installed an up and running in no time at all. No real issues in two years. Text
I totally get that, I have it installed myself. So far it has just been to play around a bit as I haven’t really needed it since pretty much anything can be done with normal HA automations, especially since the choose: function came out.
I just don’t get why Dom is so determined to make things hard for himself on his first HA adventure… Given the length of this thread with his troubles one wonders why he doesn’t just jump into HassOS. A Raspberry Pi is not exactly a beast of a machine, so why try and jam Debian and whatever else on it as well… FFS, I’d just but a second one for all that nonsense, they are that cheap!
Anyway, I’ll let him go…
Best way to learn is teach others. Maybe you can make a walk through to help the next guy…
And FYI, theres pretty much a written guide or youtube for everyone of those. But it seems like your asking for something written specifically for you, your exact purpose, your exact use case that you need to make no modifications for. Sorry to tell ya but your not gonna find that.
Hi Dave.
thanks for your post.
Here some answers
Problem is that docker version does not offer same services (Supervisor not present) … and the nightmare began.
My “old Hassio-> HassOS” is still up and running, but installing different add-ons, modules is not as easy as it should.
OK, you can find doc, YouTube, … but again, on Internet you find everything, once you have the correct keywords, if not, you find always the same articles written by people positionned by their vues and not by thee quality of the content.
After this, I wanted to make my ZigBee devices to communicate with HA … (using Tuya), Murphy came in the game.
In parallel, to preserve my SD cards, I moved to a SSD … at least I tried.
I felt in many issues : faulty SSD - Dead On Arrival, bluddy stupid MAC address randomization with NetworkManager imposed preventing DHCP to do its job, …
This means 2 ways of working :
Last point, I want to create a small box for my brother, something easy to manage and simple to use.
Voilà, that’s mainly the reason of that post
Many thanks, till now, for all your help and advises, I will follow them, and work with two environment in parallel.
For what concerns the documentation, I think, a central repository would be appreciated. 
Cheers,
Dom
Ok, I’ll bite… despite having said otherwise
Hence I said:
Don’t muck around with YouTube videos which in many cases are years old, before HassOS even existed in it’s current form (old HassIO days).
Just use ZHA. It’s a core HA Integration and works great. It doesn’t matter that the ZigBee devices might be Tuya branded, you can use ZHA.
Oh, you mean this?
I hate to sound nasty here but you are clearly struggling and you shouldn’t be given how easy HA is. Prior to starting with HA roughly 4 years ago I had next to ZERO Linux experience and I’ve since setup multiple HA instances-> Originally HassIO on a RPi3B, then migrated that to a low spec NUC, then Ubuntu/Docter/HassOS on a new NUC, then straight HassOS on that same NUC (since I found no need for running a Linux OS underneath).
With your claims of 40 years I.T. experience, one wonders why you are having such difficulties with a basic system. Please just take the advice of many and start with HassOS. Try again following the OFFICIAL docs (as I linked above) and go from there.
I’ll give another clue:
