Numina Deployment with Conda

Conda was created with a target similar to virtualenv, but extended its functionality to the management of packages in different languages.

You can install miniconda or anaconda. The difference is that miniconda provides a light-weight environment and anaconda comes with lots of additional Python packages. By installing miniconda you reduce the amount of preinstalled packages in your system (after installing miniconda it is possible to install anaconda by executing conda install anaconda).

If you have updated the $PATH system variable during the miniconda or conda installation, you can call conda commands directly in the shell, like this:

bash$ conda info

If not, you will need the add the path to the command, like:

bash$ /path/to/conda/bin/conda info

In this guide we will write the commands without the full path, for simplicity.

Once conda is installed according to the corresponding miniconda or anaconda instructions, the steps to instal numina under conda are:

Create a conda environment

With coda, environments are created in a centralised manner (under the subdirectory ./envs in your conda tree):

conda create --name numinaenv

The Pyhton interpreter used in this environment is the same version currently used by conda. You can select a different version with:

conda create --name numinaenv python=3.6

Activate the environment

With command:

conda activate numinaenv

which yields a different system prompt to the user:

(numinaenv) $

To exit the environment is enough to exit the terminal or run the following command:

(numinaenv) $ conda deactivate

Numina installation

After the environment activation, we can install numina using conda (we provide conda packages in the conda-forge channel):

(numinaenv) $ conda install -c conda-forge numina

We can also update numina, if your environment contains already a installed version:

(numinaenv) $ conda update numina

If you need to install the development version, you can download the source code and proceed following the instructions in xxxx.

Other possibility is using pip. It can access individual branches, particular commits or just the latest code. For example this will install the latest development version:

(numinaenv) $ pip install git+https://github.com/guaix-ucm/numina.git

Check the pip documentation for the syntax of other types of packages sources.

Warning

Issues can arise with packages installed with pip in conda environments. See https://www.anaconda.com/blog/using-pip-in-a-conda-environment for details.

Test the installation

We can test the installation by running the numina command:

(numinaenv) $ numina
INFO: Numina simple recipe runner version 0.20