I am an absolute noob in every sense of the word. I have been interested in Home Automation for a long while and have decided to go for it. I started searching and reading all about different options and the openHAB kept coming up. It seemed to offer all that I was interested in and has a strong following. I plan to order a new Raspberry PI 2 and a Gen5 Z Stick to be the heart of the unit. While I wait for the items to arrive, I figured I would download the software and familiarize myself with it. Well, I have spent more hours than I care to admit and I can’t even get it installed on my laptop. I read the wiki and several guides and I for the life of me can’t figure it out. I keep reading about how the 2.0 is going to be so much easier and user friendly. What am I doing wrong? I installed Domoticz, HomeGenie and InControl, all without issue. I decided to download and try those simply because I cant get the openHAB to install. I really want to use the openHAB, based on my reads, but I may be forced to use one of the others simply because I am unable to get it up and going. Is there a click here, now click here type of guide to follow? I looked for a video guide, but everything I find is after it is installed, how to use it. I am not even sure if I downloaded the correct files. This is quite embarrassing and frustrating all at the same time. Please help.
Start with the 1.7.x version.
2.x is not yet ready for production use esp for zwave. Close–but not yet.
See here for various Pi 2 etc noob info:
Read the whole thread.
You can do this. You just have to be systematic about it.
Get the binding loading first.
Change your logback.xml to do DEBUG logging of zwave.
@cdjackson (who has done heroic work on zwave) disagrees a bit, but others have found the same thing I have, sometimes you have to specify the :0 port in your zwave items file(s).
Get into the habit of defining PROXY’s for your items — it may seem superficial now, but get into the habit from the beginning of your journey here and it WILL keep your away from a host of logical/mental problems later.
[quote=“reefskinner, post:1, topic:2544, full:true”]
… and I can’t even get it installed on my laptop.[/quote]
Windows Operating System? Read this.
Then download the demo files from here and copy them to your chosen directory.
Click on start.bat.
Point your browser to http://localhost:8080/openhab.app?sitemap=demo
Now you can play around and familiarize yourself with this wonderful software …
If you have Linux on your Laptop it’s almost the same, just use the demo setup first until your new hardware arrives so that you have a little bit more of success with openhab meanwhile 
Good luck.