38.1 Home Assistant Setup

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The Home Assistant system was installed on a Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Server following the instructions at https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/linux choosing to run the Home Assistant Operating System within a VirtualBox image.

Starting up the VirtualBox GUI, create a new virtual machine giving a name like homeassistant. Choose Linux, version Linux 2.6 / 3.x / 4.x (64-bit). Select to Use an existing virtual hard disk file, and select the unzipped VDI file that you can download from from https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/linux. Edit the Settings of the VM, navigating to System then Motherboard to select Enable EFI. Under Network choose Adapter 1 and then choose Bridged Adapter and your Network adapter. Under Audio choose Intel HD Audio as the Audio Controller.

We then end up with 4GB RAM and 32 GB Storage.

By default VirtualBox does not free up unused disk space. To automatically shrink the VDI disk image the discard option must be enabled:

VBoxManage storageattach <VM name> --storagectl "SATA" --port 0 --device 0 --nonrotational on --discard on

Start the Virtual Machine and note the console as it progresses through the boot process of Home Assistant Operating System. Once completed you will be able to reach Home Assistant on homeassistant.local:8123 from anywhere on the local network.

Home Assistant will automatically identify any devices it knows about that are on your network like routers and printers. Once identified you can configure them.

Continue on to the On Boarding guide and review a guide to the initial setup on YouTube.

Some general steps include:

  • Turn on Advanced mode for your user profile.
  • Enable SSH through the Community Add-on SSH & Web Terminal Monitor
  • Install Add-on File Editor
  • Install HACS

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