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Generic x86-64
Home Assistant

15-19 minuti

Install Home Assistant Operating System

Follow this guide if you want to get started with Home Assistant
easily or if you have little to no Linux experience.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you have a dedicated Generic x86-64 PC

to exclusively run the Home Assistant Operating 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. [Learn more].

• This is typically an Intel or AMD-based system.

• The system must be 64-bit capable and be able to boot using UEFI.
• Most systems produced in the last 10 years support the UEFI boot
mode.

Summary

1. First, you will need to configure your Generic x86-64 PC to use

UEFI boot mode.

2. Then, write the Home Assistant Operating 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. [Learn more] disk image to your boot medium.
 Configure the BIOS on your x86-64 hardware

To boot Home Assistant OS, the BIOS needs to have UEFI boot
mode enabled and Secure Boot disabled. The following
screenshots are from a 7th generation Intel NUC system. The BIOS
menu will likely look different on your system. However, the options
should still be present and named similarly.

1. To enter the BIOS, start up your x86-64 hardware and repeatedly

press the F2 key (on some systems this might be Del, F1 or F10).

2. Make sure the UEFI Boot mode is enabled.

3. Disable Secure Boot.

4. Save your changes and exit.

The BIOS configuration is now complete.

Write HAOS onto your x86-64 hardware

Next, you need to write the Home Assistant Operating System

image to the boot medium, which is the medium your x86-64
hardware will boot from when it is running Home Assistant.

HAOS has no integrated installer that writes the image

automatically. You will write it manually using either the Disks utility
from Ubuntu or Balena Etcher.

Typically, an internal medium like S-ATA hard disk, S-ATA SSD,

M.2 SSD, or a non-removable eMMC is used for the x86-64 boot
medium. Alternatively, an external medium can be used such as a
USB SDD, though this is not recommended.

To write the HAOS image to the boot medium on your x86-64

hardware, there are 2 different methods:

Method 1 (recommended): Boot Ubuntu from a USB flash drive

and install the Home Assistant Operating 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. [Learn more] from there. It also works on laptops and PCs with
internal hard disks.
 Method 2: With this method, you write the Home Assistant
Operating disk image directly onto a boot medium from your regular
computer. The steps are a bit more complex. If you have non-
removable internal mediums (for example because you are using a
laptop) or do not have the necessary adapter (for example an USB
to S-ATA adapter) use method 1 instead.

Method 1: Installing HAOS via Ubuntu booting from a USB

flash drive

Required material

• Computer

• The target x86-64 hardware, on which you want to install the Home
Assistant Operating 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. [Learn more]
(HAOS)

• USB flash drive (USB thumb drive is sufficient, it should be at least

4 GB in size)

• Internet connection

To install HAOS via Ubuntu from a USB flash drive

1. Notice: This procedure will write the Home Assistant Operating

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. [Learn more] onto your device.
• This means you will lose all the data as well as the previously
installed operating system.

• Back up your data before carrying out this procedure.

2. Create a live operating system on a USB flash drive:

• Follow the Ubuntu instructions on writing an Ubuntu iso file onto a
USB device.

3. Insert the USB flash drive into the system on which you want to run
Home Assistant.
• Boot the live operating system.

• You might need to adjust boot order or use F10 (might be a

different F-key depending on the BIOS) to select the USB flash
drive as boot device.

4. When prompted, make sure to select Try Ubuntu. This runs

Ubuntu on the USB flash device.
• The system then starts Ubuntu.

• Connect your system to your network and make sure it has internet
access.

5. In Ubuntu, open a browser and open the current documentation

page, so you can follow the steps.
• From there, download the image.

6. In Ubuntu, in the bottom left corner, select Show Applications.

7. In the applications, search and open Disks and start restoring the
HAOS image:
1. In Disks, on the left side, select the internal disk device you want to
install HAOS onto.

2. On top of the screen, select the three dots menu and select
Restore Disk Image….
3. Select the image you just downloaded.

4. Select Start Restoring….

5. Confirm by selecting Restore.

• If you are getting an Error unmounting filesystem error message,

stating that the target is busy:

• Most likely, you are running Ubuntu on your internal disk. Instead,
you need to run it on your stick.
• Go back to step 3 and during start up, make sure you select Try
Ubuntu (and NOT Install Ubuntu).

6. In the partitions overview, you should now see the restore operation
in progress.
• The Home Assistant Operating System is now being installed on
your system.
8. Once the Home Assistant Operating System is installed, shut down
the system.
• Once Ubuntu has been shut down, remove the USB flash drive
(Ubuntu will inform you when this is the case).

• Your Home Assistant server is now set up and you can start using
it.

• To use it, proceed as described under start up your generic x86-64.

Method 2: Installing HAOS directly from a boot medium

Use this method only if Method 1 does not work for you.

Required material

• Computer

• The target x86-64 hardware, on which you want to install the Home
Assistant Operating 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. [Learn more]
(HAOS)
• Boot medium

• Internet connection

Write the image to your boot medium

1. Notice: This procedure will write the Home Assistant Operating

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. [Learn more] onto your device.

• This means you will lose all the data as well as the previously
installed operating system.

• Back up your data before continuing with the next step.

2. Attach the Home Assistant boot medium (storage device) to your

computer.

3. Download and start Balena Etcher. You may need to run it with
administrator privileges on Windows.

4. Download the image to your computer.

• Copy the URL for the image.

• If there are multiple links below, make sure to select the correct link
for your version of Generic x86-64.

Select and copy the URL or use the “copy” button that appear when
you hover it.

5. Paste the URL into your browser to start the download.

6. Select Flash from file and select the image you just downloaded.
• Do not use Flash from URL. It does not work on some systems.
7. Select target.

8. Select the boot medium (storage device) you want to use for
your installation.
 9. Select Flash! to start writing the image.

• If the operation fails, decompress the .xz file and try again.

• When Balena Etcher has finished writing the image, you will see a
confirmation.
 Start up your Generic x86-64

• If you used method 1 for the installation, make sure the USB flash
drive is removed from the system.

• If you used method 2 for the installation, install the boot medium
into your x86-64 hardware.

1. Plug in an Ethernet cable that is connected to the network and to

the internet.
• Note: Internet is required because the newly installed Home
Assistant OS does not contain all Home Assistant components yet.
It downloads the latest version of Home Assistant Core on first
start.

2. Power the system on. If you have a screen connected to the

Generic x86-64 system, after a minute or so the Home Assistant
welcome banner will appear in the console.

If the machine complains about not being able to find a bootable

medium, you might need to specify the EFI entry in your BIOS. This
can be accomplished either by using a live operating system (e.g.
Ubuntu) and running the following command (replace
<drivename> with the appropriate drive name assigned by Linux,
typically this will be sda or nvme0n1 on NVMe SSDs):
 The efibootmgr command will only work if you booted the live
operating system in UEFI mode, so be sure to boot from your USB
flash drive in this mode. Depending on your privileges on the
prompt, you may need to run efibootmgr using sudo.

Or else, the BIOS might provide you with a tool to add boot options,
there you can specify the path to the EFI file:

3. In the browser of your desktop system, within a few minutes you

will be able to reach your new Home Assistant at
homeassistant.local:8123.

If you are running an older Windows version or have a stricter

network configuration, you might need to access Home Assistant at
homeassistant:8123 or `http://X.X.X.X:8123` (replace X.X.X.X with
your Generic x86-64’s IP address).

Help us improve Home Assistant

Have you just installed Home Assistant? The Home Assistant team
is looking to talk to you to understand how the installation went.

Help now

With the Home Assistant Operating System installed and

accessible, you can continue with onboarding.

Install Home Assistant Container

These below instructions are for an installation of Home Assistant

ContainerHome Assistant Container is a standalone container-
based installation of Home Assistant Core. Any OCI compatible
runtime can be used, but the documentation focus is on Docker.
[Learn more] running in your own container environment, which you
manage yourself. Any OCI compatible runtime can be used,
however this guide will focus on installing it with Docker.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you already have an operating system

 setup and a container runtime installed (like Docker).

If you are using Docker then you need to be on at least version

19.03.9, ideally an even higher version, and libseccomp 2.4.2 or
newer.

Platform installation

Installation with Docker is straightforward. Adjust the following

command so that:

• /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG points at the folder where you want to

store your configuration and run it. Make sure that you keep the :/
config part.

• MY_TIME_ZONE is a tz database name, like TZ=America/

Los_Angeles.

• D-Bus is optional but required if you plan to use the Bluetooth

integration.

Once the Home Assistant Container is running Home Assistant

should be accessible using http://<host>:8123 (replace with
the hostname or IP of the system). You can continue with
onboarding.

Restart Home Assistant

If you change the configuration, you have to restart the server. To

do that you have 3 options.

1. In your Home Assistant UI, go to the Settings > System and click
the Restart button.

2. You can go to the Developer Tools > Services, select the service
homeassistant.restart and select Call Service.

3. Restart it from a terminal.

Docker compose

As the Docker command becomes more complex, switching to

docker compose can be preferable and support automatically
restarting on failure or system restart. Create a compose.yml file:

Start it by running:

Once the Home Assistant Container is running, Home Assistant

should be accessible using http://<host>:8123 (replace with
the hostname or IP of the system). You can continue with
onboarding.

Exposing devices

In order to use Zigbee or other integrations that require access to

devices, you need to map the appropriate device into the container.
Ensure the user that is running the container has the correct
privileges to access the /dev/tty* file, then add the device
mapping to your container instructions:

Optimizations

The Home Assistant Container is using an alternative memory

allocation library jemalloc for better memory management and
Python runtime speedup.

As jemalloc can cause issues on certain hardware, it can be

disabled by passing the environment variable DISABLE_JEMALLOC
with any value, for example:

The error message <jemalloc>: Unsupported system page

size is one known indicator.

Install Home Assistant Core

This is an advanced installation process, and some steps might

differ on your system. Considering the nature of this installation
type, we assume you can handle subtle differences between this
document and the system configuration you are using. When in
doubt, please consider one of the other installation methods, as
they might be a better fit instead.
Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you already have an operating system

setup and have installed Python 3.12 (including the package
python3-dev) or newer.

Install dependencies

Before you start, make sure your system is fully updated, all
packages in this guide are installed with apt, if your OS does not
have that, look for alternatives.

Install the dependencies:

The above-listed dependencies might differ or missing, depending

on your system or personal use of Home Assistant.

Create an account

Add an account for Home Assistant Core called homeassistant.

Since this account is only for running Home Assistant Core the
extra arguments of -rm is added to create a system account and
create a home directory. The arguments -G dialout,gpio,i2c
adds the user to the dialout, gpio and the i2c group. The first is
required for using Z-Wave and Zigbee controllers, while the second
is required to communicate with GPIO.

Create the virtual environment

First we will create a directory for the installation of Home Assistant

Core and change the owner to the homeassistant account.

Next up is to create and change to a virtual environment for Home

Assistant Core. This will be done as the homeassistant account.

Once you have activated the virtual environment (notice the prompt
change to (homeassistant)
homeassistant@raspberrypi:/srv/homeassistant $) you
will need to run the following command to install a required Python
package.
Once you have installed the required Python package, it is now
time to install Home Assistant Core!

Start Home Assistant Core for the first time. This will complete the
installation for you, automatically creating the .homeassistant
configuration directory in the /home/homeassistant directory,
and installing any basic dependencies.

You can now reach your installation via the web interface on
http://homeassistant.local:8123.

If this address doesn’t work you may also try http://

localhost:8123 or http://X.X.X.X:8123 (replace X.X.X.X
with your machines’ IP address).

When you run the hass command for the first time, it will download,
install and cache the necessary libraries/dependencies. This
procedure may take anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes. During
that time, you may get a site cannot be reached error when
accessing the web interface. This will only happen the first time.
Subsequent restarts will be much faster.

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