#Choosing Between Alpine Linux vs Home Assistant OS. For Noisy & Laggy Zigbee/MQTT network.

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

cyan jasper
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Hello Wonderful Home Assistant Community.

I’ve been planning an entire smart home that consists of 100+ devices (even more entities).
My core is

  • Z2M (Zigbee2MQTT)
  • MQTT (Broker Mosquitto)
  • Zimaboardv1 + SATA SSD. (Hardware).
  • SLZB-06 Coordinator
  • Sonoff Dongle P (flashed) Extenders.

Right now I am facing a lot of lag and drops in my Zigbee network

Replaced all my switches because the brand I used was Tuya Based and I hate Tuya with all my heart really…

The network is now better …
But it’s still laggy to the point it’s not useable.
I’m trying to eliminate as much overhead as I can so the system only has the absolute bare minimum components to function.

I’ve been using a Sonoff P as my coordinator. I’m going to replace it with an SLZB.
For with my testing it yields better performance. And I can move it. It’s not tied to the hub’s location

Now my fork-in-the-road is the following:

  • A: Should I go with HomeAssistantOS.?
  • B: Should I go with using Alpine Linux as my base OS. And docker for HA - Mosquitto - Z2M?.

Context:
I’ve been running everything using Docker & CasaOS. Which turned out to not work so well.

That’s why I’m considering the move to either
An Alpine Backbone or a HomeAssistantOS approach.

However I do not know how HomeAssistant OS, handles an external SATA SSD. To my knowledge it’s an immutable OS. in which I cannot safely guarantee that if by accident the SSD is unplugged. The mount point would stay persistent or not.
even if I modify the fstab file. It might revert during upgrades or updates if HomeAssistantOS is used.
In summery:

  • Problem is overhead. + congested Zigbee/MQTT traffic. Causing a lot of lag & Drops.
  • Moves to mitigate: Replace Coordinator with SLZB-06 Coordinator. - Removing & Replacing CasaOS with something with less overhead (Alpine Linux or HAOS).
  • What do I want to know?: Choosing Alpine or HAOS. Given External SATA SSD persistence concerns. + advice on handling Zigbee/MQTT high-traffic& congestion
shut rose
# cyan jasper Hello Wonderful Home Assistant Community. I’ve been planning an entire smart ho...

personally, I would go with HAOS. many people run it from an external drive. if you "accidently unplug it" then its going to be very upset but rebooting would hopefully fix. but in any case you should use the backup system and ensure you have a disaster recovery plan in case it doesn't come back up.

anecdotally the zimaboards don't seem to be great options and switching systems in the future might be something to consider. but sometimes the best hardware is the hardware you already have. even if you have to work a little.

gleaming urchin
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run proxmox and virtualize home assistant

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?\

shut rose
cyan jasper
# shut rose personally, I would go with HAOS. many people run it from an external drive. if ...

I’m not sure how familiar are you with Linux operating system.

But when it comes to external hardisks. Especially ones you plan on making essential to your device.

It’s generally good practice to persist the mount of the external disk to a known location.

/ssd. for example.
that is done by editing the fstab file on your system.
To explicitly tell the system to mount this particular drive in xyz location.

You can also make it so the system refuses to boot unless the drive is present.
This prevents systems from booting without the drive. And running into issues

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I’ve learned the hard way to always persist drives.
Because if not … something eventually goes wrong.
Your system by default assigns random locations to drives …
That is problematic for apps that relay on paths

shut rose
cyan jasper
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I’ve decided that for the time being.
I’ll install HAOS and hope for the best.

I’ll run tests using alpine on my testing environment.

For now … for stability sake, I’ll use Home Assistant OS.

Alpine needs to be throughly tested before deploying it for clients (:

shut rose
cyan jasper
shut rose
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I know there's a few people doing it. but its a bit ballsy because of the ongoing support.

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and i definetly would use zima's for it 😛

cyan jasper
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If you know anyone from Saudi Arabia who would be interested in our work.
Please refer them to me directly 🌟

cyan jasper
shut rose
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gotcha

cyan jasper
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We’re currently testing GMKTec

shut rose
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beelink are my go to for mini pc's but in practical terms they are not much different.

cyan jasper
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I just want to know one thing

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Why is CasaOS heavy …

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I mean… I don’t know if it’s a docker thing or not …
But I remember installing Node-RED on CasaOS ..

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It was so heavy it affected my Zigbee preference …

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I am not sure why it happens
But i wouldn’t believe it if i hadn’t tested the before and after personally

shut rose
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its one of these middleware pieces of shit that are a solution in search of a problem...

cyan jasper
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Took me a moment to understand what you said.
But I agree

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I love the idea

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of CasaOS

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But … in practice

shut rose
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theres a bunch of them. i dislike the concept but some are worse than others. casaos is pretty bad

cyan jasper
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Why I chose CasaOS to begin with?
(It came pre installed in my Zimaboard. And at first it was easy to build with)

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Then I ran into custom docker installs … then saw that it was eating up resources

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And …. Idk I hate it now lol

shut rose
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a bunch of people like "unraid"
then there's the newer "HexOS" which is truenas based and lets you use the truenas ui if you wanna get into the weeds with it

the way i see it is that they are for people who kinda like the idea of what a server can do but they dont want to actually have a server or run one. if it helps them run stuff locally and more securly because they wouldnt do it otherwise then sure its a good thing. but I dislike it in concept.

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then the other camp is people spending INSANE money on a synology setup which is basically the same but with expensive hardware.

cyan jasper
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When you’re dealing as a business.
CasaOS was appealing because “it just works”.
I know this might sound lazy.

But when you’re in somebody’s house. The longer you take to configure a system. The more irritated the house owner becomes. Especially if they’re normally living within the house.

I’ve learned from my mistake.
And would steer clear of that mentality of “just works”
And am now testing a bunch of different setups.
And see how they hold up.

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Alpine is sooo appealing to me.
Because it’s super light weight.
And you only install what you’d need.

And is perfect for my use case

It combines flexibility + speed.

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But i acknowledge the fact that not having as much “bins”
As a normal Linux server distro, will lead to missing dependencies along the way.
So I’m just taking my time w testing. To see what works and what would be missing