Best hardware

[lyric flicker]

What is the best hardware to run homeassistant on?

[devout cedar]

it really depends on your exact use case.
I have some notes on the subject HERE

[thick dawn]

I have some too: https://gist.github.com/Impact123/6ee130240bdc6a7fed2d5224616544a0#what-do-i-recommend-instead
There's no "best". Especially not without details.

[lyric flicker]

I have a mini PC N40 is it possible to use it?

[thick dawn]

A bit low spec but might do if it can do UEFI boot.

[spark scroll]

anything that is better than a pi 4 (pretty much anything) should do homeassistant fine

especially when you pick the docker packaged variant, then mostly anything will work

[autumn pike]

^ fyi I run everything on an old 2014 Mac mini and it has tons of headroom

Just bc I had it laying around and thought I might as well put a use to it

[lyric flicker]

So if I use my N40 do I convert it to Linux?

[devout cedar]

you should flash HAOS to the SSD

the easiest way to do it is to connect the SSD to another machine and flash it then put it back in and boot.
however if that's not possible you can boot a live linux distro on the machine and flash it from there.
This documentation page should give a general ideal - https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/generic-x86-64/

[jolly spindle]

I am running it on a TV Box that I flashed Armbian on - so far so good!

[devout cedar]

I assume you are running container install then? I lean towards suggesting HAOS but sure you could install a standard distro and run container.

[jolly spindle]

Indeed. For the less tech savvy, HAOS is certainly the better option but I hate the idea of buying a new PC/Pi when I already have spare hardware laying around. If I had a spare Pi, I would have gone with HAOS.

[final sedge]

I’d recommend Proxmox so you have extra functionality and then you can run HAOS in a VM

[devout cedar]

whilst in general I do recommend proxmox. in this case with the N40 its maybe not a good idea. you don't have much extra resources to work with and by the time you take out the hypervisor overhead you are probably not running anything else anyway.

[final sedge]

I didn’t realize how weak that CPU is lol. Looks like it’s weaker than even an i5-6500T

[lyric flicker]

Stick I installed Ubuntu on usb drive then put it in my N40 but just keeps booting into windows. Also tried installing Ubuntu from Microsoft store so I can run that from windows but not sure how to install HAOS from there

[devout cedar]

you will probably need to adjust your systems boot settings to set usb drive as higher priority so that it boots before the drive that has windows on it.
you need to boot ubuntu from a separate drive (in this case usb drive). you cant flash the drive your booting from which would be the case for running WSL ubuntu under windows.

[lyric flicker]

I did that still comes up in windows

[devout cedar]

check the uefi boot priority at the bottom see if anything in there.
also can see if there is a hotkey when booting to open. (like when you enter key to enter bios but a different one)

[autumn pike]

Can also see if there’s a menu to boot directly into something

[devout cedar]

can also see if there is anything called "CSM" (Compatibility Support Module) or "Legacy Boot" anywhere.

[lyric flicker]

After all that it turned out to be a bad USB drive installing ubuntu now

balenaetcher didn't complain but when I tried another drive this time it did a valikdate sso I knew something was different

[lyric flicker]

So what I got was ubuntu 24.04.3LTS what I noticed different is there was no prompt 'Try Ubuntu' just install so I chose to install along sided windows and select at boot. not sure how that will work when i install HAOS?

[lyric flicker]

So some background, i'm not really new to HA but for years I used an rpi3b+ and then HA just got to big for that. Then I retired from Oracle so I tried running HA on my regular computer using Oracle virtualbox but that hasn't really worked out because I have to restart the VM every couple days because it would stop responding due to errors. So I had this mini PC lying around that I ussed to use as a Plex server. So hopefully this works out.

[devout cedar]

no, you DO NOT INSTALL UBUNTU to the system

you "try ubuntu" to live boot it from the USB drive. this means the internal SSD is not being used which means you can flash HAOS onto the internal drive from that environment.
once you flash the internal drive with HAOS it will not have any other OS on it.

[vast kelp]

What do you @devout cedar @thick dawn think of the: https://www.amazon.nl/AWOW-generatie-desktopcomputer-Display-Ethernet/dp/B0D7L6V82N/ref=sw_img_mw_ci_mcx_mr_?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0D7L6V82N&pd_rd_w=tXjja&content-id=amzn1.sym.2e20926f-519c-4dc8-ab54-38209f19fde5%3Aamzn1.symc.eaa91228-58ea-42f8-a631-5098a2e0da40&pf_rd_p=2e20926f-519c-4dc8-ab54-38209f19fde5&pf_rd_r=19GGJJZ47Y77NFR56P13&pd_rd_wg=rMdgN&pd_rd_r=aa17f37b-4028-46d1-a326-e488817c82a5

[thick dawn]

Too expensive for my liking. See some examples here from yesterday: #1440602082318225449 message

[devout cedar]

it looks fine, personally I tend to lean towards the Beelink stuff though. probably no real difference but I have had good experiences with Beelink.
you can definitely get cheaper solutions like old thin client type systems as @thick dawn alludes to above.

[thick dawn]

For example: https://www.ebay.nl/itm/356709232431
Having a hard time navigating the NL eBay so you have to look around yourself for more.

[vast kelp]

Im not very confidence enough regarding second handed hardware stuff. Don’t want hassle that it will fail on me after a few years 🫣

[tough kestrel]

(u)ssf pc from Dell, HP Lenovo etc. where made for corporate use (mainly), they will last though

[vast kelp]

Of course I would like to get a good deal, but rather pay a few extra bucks, meaning it will last for a decade 😁

[thick dawn]

That's not really related to age IMO. Besides, if the Mini PC fails you have less chance to replace things (soldered CPU) and it costs you more.
You can buy two such Tiny PCs for the price of one Mini PC. Also as said in the link, support is better if you want to keep it for a decade.

[devout cedar]

to be fair, all this does actually depend on your exact use case. if your only using basic home assistant and not adding a bunch of addons etc... then you can probably just get a green and it works out the box.

[tough kestrel]

that would be a good choice..

[vast kelp]

Well, it will only be used for HA. Few addons. But like you all know, when started with ha, it only gets bigger and bigger. What makes me doubt; te second hand device is from 2017. So already 8 years “old”.
Beelink s13 current price is 238, that’s a bit to much to be honest. Was thinking about spending around 160 of so.

[devout cedar]

yeah they seem to have jumped in price a bit recently. i think its possibly related to the component price jump on the SSD/RAM side.

[tough kestrel]

tbh, a pc that is 2 years old, is already old... It depends on the build factor. for hardware running haos all of the above listed options work, and will continue to work for years..

e.g.: i would rather prefer buying a dell, hp etc 8 years old, than a 1 year old china semi product pc..

[vast kelp]

This doesn’t make my choice easier haha 😂

[tough kestrel]

i know

[lyric flicker]

I must have got the wrongiso file then because as I said there was no option to Try Ubuntu can you provide a link to the correct iso file?

[tough kestrel]

ubuntu???

[devout cedar]

its the standard ubuntu iso file

i cant remember exactly how it looks but it asks if you want to install and you say no and it drops you in a live enviroment

[tough kestrel]

yes, click try ubuntu, not install

[lyric flicker]

so now that I have installed it what do I do to uninstall it?

[devout cedar]

you don't have to it will go when you write over it

[lyric flicker]

so this begs the question if I can make a dual boot system with windows and ubuntu why can't I do the same with HAOS?

[thick dawn]

Isn't dual booting a server kinda dumb?

[devout cedar]

you could probably hack something together so achieve it if you were so inclined. but its not supported and is absolutely in no way a useful feature.

"ill just disable all my house controls and automations for a bit because I want to check something on windows"

[lyric flicker]

ok will continue following www.home-assistant.io/installation

ok so I downloaded the haos_generic-x86-64-16.3.img.xz file when I clisk on it asks to restore and asks for destination do I use my boot drive?

[vast kelp]

You boot from the usb, then install ha on the internal storage of the device you are willing to use. The usb, is just to boot from.

[tough kestrel]

Looking for new hardware now too, just submerged my pc with beer... no lol

[devout cedar]

that is not ideal...

[tough kestrel]

Subideal

[maiden python]

Learn Linux. You won’t regret it. It’s a skill you can use for anything. Install Debian on any PC you can find with more then 4GB RAM and run HA inside docker.

Obviously prefer any storage media you can find over SD or USB. M.2 better than SSD on SATA which is better then HDD.

[lyric flicker]

OK success how do I get HA to use a specific ip address I have a duckdns domain name and I want my router to redirect to this machine

[tough kestrel]

in router set static lease for ha, and use ha auto dhcp

pc survived... yeahhh

[tough kestrel]

just had the perfect example for older pc's.. Beer in pc > quick dry > power > booting... lol

[maiden python]

You want to port forward to HA? I’m assuming you’re gonna filter by client IP.

[maiden python]

Prob not half as bad as coffee. 😉

[tough kestrel]

would use tailscale instead of duck

[tough kestrel]

i would have preferred coffee in pc instead of my LAST beer

[maiden python]

I use duck+wireguard. But yup please don’t globally forward the port to HA. It’s really not up for that. No offence to the HA programmers.

[lyric flicker]

Ya probably more just in case I ever get something else to run ha on I could go back to windows

[final sedge]

Just make a backup of your windows install or fresh install…

[lyric flicker]

just a quick thanks to everyone here HA up and running on my Intel N40 judt got to figure out whats wrong with my temperature sensor sayin unavailable but they weren't working before