Conda Basics

Manage software and environments using conda.

Course Overview 02:15:31 (Show All)

About this course

Description

This course covers the basics of working with conda to manage software, from creating and managing environments, using channels, and installing dependencies. You will learn why using conda is important and how it will improve your workflow. The course will cover what happens in the operating system when an environment is created or a package is installed. Lastly, you will practice how to create, modify, export and share an environment. By the end of the course, you will be able to apply this to your day-to-day activities in software development or data analysis.

This course is part of the conda Fundamentals certification program and you can learn more here if you are interested in getting Anaconda certified.

What you'll learn—and how you can apply it

By the end of this hands-on course, you’ll understand:

  • What is conda and how it can make you more productive
  • How conda environments, packages and channels work
  • How conda interacts with the underlying OS

And you’ll be able to:

  • Create, manage and share conda environments
  • Search and install packages from different channels
  • Use the most common conda commands

This training is for you because...

  • You’re a software developer or data scientist
  • You have to install and use several different packages
  • You must maintain an organized computational environment

Prerequisites 

  • Get Started with Anaconda course
  • Command line basics
    • How to use basic Terminal commands such as ls and cd 
    • If a refresher is needed, consider completing Episodes 1-3 of the Software Carpentry “The Unix Shell” lesson
  • UNIX Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
    • Understand what is the root directory / and the home/user directory ~

Setup

To follow along using your desktop IDE:

  1. Install or update to the latest version of Anaconda
  2. Launch your command line tool and configure your conda environment

For macOS and Linux users: Search and launch Terminal in your system

For Windows users: Locate and launch Anaconda Prompt in your system

3. (Optional but recommended) From the command line, run the following prompts to create and activate a new environment

conda create --name NEW_ENV_NAME

conda activate NEW_ENV_NAME

Facilitator Bio

Vini Salazar is a bioinformatician, developer, and educator. He is currently a graduate student at The University of Melbourne, performing research on computational and statistical methods for microbial genomics, and spends most of his time developing software for scientific applications. He is also an Instructor and Maintainer Community Lead at The Carpentries, a global organisation that teaches coding and data skills to researchers. Vini has been a user of Anaconda since 2015 and has over five years of experience in educational settings, teaching programming and related skills to individuals and groups in the academia and industry.

Questions? Issues? Join our Community page to get help.