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Installing Miniforge

The document summarizes replacing the Anaconda distribution with Miniforge due to licensing changes. It outlines uninstalling Anaconda, installing Miniforge, configuring Miniforge to use the conda-forge channel instead of the defaults channel, and installing packages and environments using Miniforge. Key steps include uninstalling Anaconda, downloading and running the Miniforge installer, checking the conda config shows only the conda-forge channel, and installing packages like pandas or Spyder through the Miniforge command prompt.

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230 views2 pages

Installing Miniforge

The document summarizes replacing the Anaconda distribution with Miniforge due to licensing changes. It outlines uninstalling Anaconda, installing Miniforge, configuring Miniforge to use the conda-forge channel instead of the defaults channel, and installing packages and environments using Miniforge. Key steps include uninstalling Anaconda, downloading and running the Miniforge installer, checking the conda config shows only the conda-forge channel, and installing packages like pandas or Spyder through the Miniforge command prompt.

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mac
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Replacing Anaconda with Miniforge

Anaconda and Miniconda, together with the main Anaconda repository ( defaults ), are no longer free for commercial
use - see Terms of Service. If you have these installed on your system, you must uninstall them.

An alternative is to use Miniforge, an open source project to provide the conda package manager using the conda-
forge channel for packages.

Uninstalling Anaconda or Miniconda


Open the folder where Anaconda or Miniconda is installed and look for a file named Anaconda uninstall.exe or
Miniconda uninstall.exe . You may also be able to find this by searching in the Start menu.

Running the uninstaller removes your installation including all path setup and configuration associated with it. It won't
remove your Python projects. You may need administrator rights to run it.

After running the uninstaller, check that your installation folder has been fully removed. Then reboot to ensure all
changes take effect.

Installing Miniforge
Miniforge is an open-source project that provides the conda package manager.

It does not come bundled with Spyder or other tools that come with Anaconda; these must be installed separately.

Download the correct installer from https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge. Most likely you want the latest
Windows x86_64 installer: Miniforge3-Windows-x86_64.exe

If you have difficulty downloading the executable, check here for a recent download:
https://aecom.sharepoint.com/sites/Python/Shared%20Documents/General

Double-click the installer to run it. When prompted to install for "Just Me" or "All Users" it's fine to choose "Just Me";
you won't need administrator rights for this.

You may like to set the install location to C:\Miniforge3 to make it easy to navigate to in future.

A Miniforge-enabled command prompt is available through the Start menu.

To check that you are only using the conda-forge channel and not defaults , open a Miniforge prompt and type:

conda config --show-sources

You should see output like this:

channels:
- conda-forge

If the defaults channel is listed, use this command to set the channel to conda-forge :

conda config --remove channels defaults


conda config --append channels conda-forge

Then check this has had the desired effect:


conda config --show-sources

An alternative is to directly edit the condarc file containing the defaults channel. You can do this in Notepad or any
plain text editor.

Installing packages
Unlike Anaconda, Miniforge does not come with many data science packages pre-installed. You can install these at the
Miniforge prompt, for example:

conda install pandas

Managing environments
If you are using different Conda environments for your projects, ensure that these are deleted when you remove
Anaconda, or remove them yourself. You can then recreate them using Miniforge in the same way you would have
done with Anaconda.

If your environment is defined in a file (usually named environment.yml ) ensure that the file does not specify the
defaults channel.

Installing Spyder
Spyder is distributed under the MIT licence at the time of writing (June 2021). It can be installed using conda :

conda install spyder

However, you are recommended to try PyCharm or Visual Studio Code both of which have excellent Python support.

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