C.2) HA on a standard PC

Follow the official installation instructions which are well written and comprehensive. I suggest you use an USB stick for the installation, or leverage an existing linux installation on the target machine.

As a general note, Home Assistant does not provide an installer. So, you don't actually install it, rather you image it on the target hard drive.

I already had a Linux installed, so i just downloaded the IMG file from Home Assistant download page and flashed it with a typical:

dd if=home-assistant.img of=/dev/sda

Beware: the above command will destroy your computer operating system and replace it with Home Assistant. You will not even be able to reboot, only power cycling will work.

Make sure your wired network is plugged, as after the first boot you will need to fire up a web browser and locate your Home Assistant IP (see your DHCP logs…). In any case, you can check Home Assistant console output on Home Assistant computer screen: it should tell you which IP address it is using. You can also perform basic maintanance tasks, which includes IP changes, from this CLI.

The initial setup is described in detail on these pages, you should follow it carefully to get started.

Some notes:

• Choose a static IP
• Choose a nice hostname (ex: ha.mydoimain.com)

Then you should plug-in your protocol dongles, for example your ZigBee coordinator and set those up as well. See the dedicated pages.

At this point you can start designing your rooms and areas. I suggest you define at this point all the floors and rooms that you have, so adding devices, lights and switches will be easier later on.

You will want to install the File Editor extension, and sooner or later you will need to edit your configuration.yaml file by hand.