this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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homeassistant

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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Why is Home Assistant an operating system and not an application installable through distro packages? (feddit.uk)
submitted 1 month ago by rah@feddit.uk to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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[–] Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

What do you mean with "Operating System"?

It is most often installed as Docker container, which isn't an OS, but just includes all dependencies to run. You still need an OS (like Debian) as host.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 9 points 1 month ago

SystemHome Assistant OS, the Home Assistant Operating System, is an embedded, minimalistic, operating system designed to run the Home Assistant ecosystem. It is the recommended installation method for most users.

From the docs for installing on a RPi

[–] rah@feddit.uk 6 points 1 month ago

What do you mean with "Operating System"?

If I go to

https://www.home-assistant.io/

and click on "Installation", ignoring the custom Home Assistant hardware, the first relevant section is "DIY with Raspberry Pi" whose tutorial has a section "Install Home Assistant Operating System".

The second relevant section of the Installation page is "Install on other hardware" with a paragraph whose second sentence is "The Home Assistant Operating System allows you to install Home Assistant on these devices even if you have little to no Linux experience."

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's most often installed as HAOS, which is a dedicated operating system that just runs Home Assistant. That is how anyone installing it on say, a Raspberry Pi, is likely to do it.

Home Assistant as a project is far more popular than every single other consumer focused server and as such it is often the first home server (and sometimes only) that many consumers will experience.