How-to: Software Management with Anaconda (Software, Python, R, Etc.)

Managing system packages, python, R and many other environments is easy with anaconda!

Step-by-step guide

1. Connect to head.arcc.albany.edu via SSH (see: How-to: Connect via SSH (PuTTY, macOS terminal, X2Go)

2. Run the following commands, line by line. Make sure you change [lab_directory] to be your lab directory name. 

   
   

   Installing miniconda

   # download the install script
   wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh -O ~/miniconda.sh
   
   # execute the installer
   bash ~/miniconda.sh -b -p /network/rit/lab/[lab_directory]/miniconda
   
   # initialize the environment to your shell 
   /network/rit/lab/[lab_directory]/miniconda/bin/conda init
   
   # If you are running bash, this is important
   cat ~/.bashrc >> ~/.bash_profile
   
   # finally, source your environment, you will only need to do this once. This will only work if your $SHELL is bash
   source ~/.bash_profile

3. Some helpful hints
   1. Do not install packages in your (base) environment (e.g. conda activate base). It is best to create separate environments for different packages, or conda is at a risk of breaking (e.g. conda create -n tensorflow python=3)
   2. Sharing conda across lab group members is possible, make sure the folder is g+rwx (chmod -R g+rwx /network/rit/lab/[lab_directory]/miniconda)
   3. Always check if conda has a software package available. There are many different channels, but researchers and software developers commonly publish to conda-forge (e.g. 

      conda install -c conda-forge ffmpeg)

   4. Read the docs: https://conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/index.html

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