What is Anaconda ?
Conda, Like pip, is a python package manager, but conda is probably undisputed as the more thorough solution of the two, with better support for non-python packages (pip has very limited support) and support for more complex dependency trees
To clarify things, conda is the package manager while Anaconda is a bigger bundle, if you want to install conda alone, you are probably looking to install Miniconda. Anaconda is a set of about a hundred packages including conda, numpy, scipy, ipython notebook, and so on.
So, let us go through installing and using Anaconda on all 3 platforms, Windows, Linux and Mac
Linux
On Debian, there is no Anaconda package, to install, you will need to download the download script from anaconda and install it (Or conda, or miniconda for that matter) , you can add miniconda to apt using the “https://repo.anaconda.com” repo if you are willing to add it (apt install conda), but here I will assume you will just install Anaconda, and the only orthodox way to do that is with the installation script
Download the Anaconda installer from the Anaconda Website
https://www.anaconda.com/download
Navigate to the downloads folder, and execute the script just downloaded, in my case, the script’s name was Anaconda3-2024.10-1-Linux-x86_64.sh so I execute the following
cd /home/qworqs/Downloads
chmod 0777 Anaconda3-2024.10-1-Linux-x86_64.sh
./Anaconda3-2024.10-1-Linux-x86_64.sh
After accepting the agreement, I see the message
Anaconda3 will now be installed into this location:
/home/qworqs/anaconda3
To which i accepted the suggested location
Now, I opt to keep the installer in the downloads directory just in case something goes wrong, but you can safely delete the 1GB installer if you like !
At the end of the installation, the installer offers to update your shell, in my case, i opted NOT TO, if you opted otherwise, you can always “set auto_activate_base” to false….
Do you wish to update your shell profile to automatically initialize conda?
This will activate conda on startup and change the command prompt when activated.
If you'd prefer that conda's base environment not be activated on startup,
run the following command when conda is activated:
conda config --set auto_activate_base false
You can undo this by running `conda init --reverse $SHELL`? [yes|no]
The environment
So, to activate an environment, there is a yaml file for every project that contains the dependencies of that project ! if you are following the index page “setup”, you still don’t have one, once you do, come back here and do this, now for the sake of keeping this tutorial generic, let us assume you are in your project’s directory, and the yaml file is called environment.yml , the following command will create a python sub-environment, and install all the dependencies in that yaml file, be sure you are in the directory with the yaml file
//First, add anaconda to path by editing ~/.bash_profile, and adding the following to the bottom of the file
export PATH=~/anaconda3/bin:$PATH
Now, to apply the changes, you should either close the terminal window and re-open it, or run the command “source ~/.bashrc”
To check whether the magic happened, run the command “conda –version”
Now, to create a virtual environment, cd into the directory that has your project and run the following
conda env create -f environment.yml
Once the above is done downloading and installing, you should get a message like the one below
#
# To activate this environment, use
#
# $ conda activate projectName
#
# To deactivate an active environment, use
#
# $ conda deactivate
Now, when you open a terminal, and want to activate an environment
1- conda init (conda deactivate to reverse)
2- open a new shell
3- conda activate ProjectName
