Step-By-Step guide for Anaconda installation On Linux For Data Science

Anaconda® is a powerful package manager, an environment manager, a Python/R data science distribution, and a collection of over 1,500+ open source packages. Anaconda is free and easy to install, and it offers free community support.

The Tutorial is divided into 4 parts:

Installing Anaconda
Testing Anaconda
Setting Up virtual environment
Installing packages

Part 1: Installing Anaconda on Linux

Open a web-browser and go to the official anaconda website

Click the download button on the top right corner.

Choose linux

Click on the download button for Python 3.7 version.

Download Anaconda python 3.7 for linux — *Download Anaconda for linux*

The Downloaded file will be saved in the default download folder of your web-browser

*Downloading anaconda in default downloads folder*

Open the linux termial by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T

In the terminal we have to run 3 commands to make your our linux version is updated with the latest and necessary packages.
- sudo apt-get upgrade
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Now we have to execute the file which we downloaded from the anaconda website.
- Navigate to the folder in which the downloaded file is saved by using cd command. In my case the downloaded file is saved in /Downloads directory
- Check if the file named ” Anaconda3-2019.03-Linux-x86_64.sh” is present by using ls command

To run the .sh file we use the bash command followed by the file name
- bash Anaconda3-2019.03-Linux-x86_64.sh

*Install Anaconda file in download folder using bash command*

Press Enter to continue the installation then type ‘yes‘.The installaton will start.

If the installation shows no error, Anaconda is installed

Part 2: Testing Anaconda

Type conda list in the terminal window. This will show all the python packages which are currently installed.

If terminal shows an error “conda command not found“.
- nano /home/username/.bashrc
- add the text “export PATH=~/anaconda3/bin:$path“
- save the file pressing Ctrl+X the Y and then Enter.
- Type the command in terminal “ source /home/username/.bashrc
- Close the terminal and run a new terminal.

*Define conda in variable path linux .bashrc*

To check the python version installed run command ” python3 --version“
To check the conda version installed run the command ” conda --version“

Run the command “conda init” to initialize the conda package manager and its base environment.

initializing conda base environment (base) — *initializing conda base environment* (base)

You can observe (base) written before the prompt. This base is by default conda base environment. We can setup our own virtual environment too.

*(base) before prompt indicating base environment*

Part 3: Setting up our own Virtual Environment

To Setup our own virtual environment we have to write the command
- conda create -n venv1 python=3.7 anaconda (where venv1 is name of virtual environment)

Creating own virtual environment "venv1" — *Creating own virtual environment “venv1”*

To deactivate a virtual environment write the command
- conda deactivate

To activate a virtual environment write the command
- conda activate venv1 (where venv1 is the virtual environment name
Now you can see (venv1) instead of (base) before prompt in the terminal window.

(venv1) before prompt indicating custom virtual environment "venv1" — *(venv1) before prompt indicating custom virtual environment “venv1”*

Part 4: Installing Packages in virtual environment

Activate the virtual environment in which you want to install the python package.
Type command conda search numpy to search the anaconda database for the python package.
Type Command conda install numpy to install the python numpy package.

*Installing numpy package in virtual environment*

If a package is not available in the anaconda database you can use the command conda install -c conda-forge tweepy
Run command conda list to check if the python package is installed or not.