Anaconda, Spyder, Mayavi - python

I'm using the anaconda distribution of python, and the spyder IDE. Installing mayavi, via conda install mayavi, breaks spyder by downgrading numpy 1.10.4 -> 1.9.3 as seen via conda list --revisions. I can 'fix' this problem by manually upgrading numpy again, but I suspect there will be issues with Mayavi.
My question(s): Is there a better way to integrate Mayavi and spyder in anaconda? And, more generally, is there a recommended protocol for managing package dependencies? If installing mayavi hadn't broken the very next thing I used (spyder), it could have been quite difficult to track the source of this error. Actually, I thought package management was the value proposition of, say, the anaconda distribution...
(Related but different question arises here.)

I had the same issue and was using the same combinatation of tools.
The solution is to use conda environments. Environments are independent 'spaces' where you can install particular combinations of packages independent of the 'main' set of packages that are there somewhere else. Detailed article here
The workflow would basically involve this:
Open Anaconda Prompt and setup a new conda environment for Mayavi ,eg. called 'mayavi_environment' :
conda create -n mayavi_environment python=(<PYTHONVERSION>)
where () is either 2.7,3.4 or which ever version you would like to create the environment with.
and once it's been created type :
activate mayavi_environment
Having done this then the necessary package dependencies need to be
installed. I too had issues with spyder, and this was sorted out by completely uninstalling it and installing it afresh in the environment. Here is a bunch of solutions to running spyder from the created environment.

Installing mayavi is little bit complicated. It uses VTK, numpy==1.15.3 and traits lib which can't be compiled without VC2015. However you can find unofficial .whl files here:
https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/
There are some ways to manage these dependencies. You can use pipenv:
https://pipenv.readthedocs.io/en/latest/advanced/
https://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Or you can use conda environments of course. Above are alternatives.

Related

Does installing anaconda conflict with Python3 and R already installed?

On my Ubuntu 18.04, I have Python 3 and R installed. I am about to study some data science, and just found https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/.
anaconda comes with Python and R and some packages. Will installing anaconda conflict with my existing installation of Python 3 and R?
Shall I install anaconda, or shall I install the packages manually and individually on demand?
How do people in data science install the tools?
Thanks.
I have a system python and R as well as anaconda and they don’t seem to conflict and I have the same OS as you. Conda, the package and environment manager that comes with anaconda, supposedly does not mix well with pip, meaning if you have a virtual environment you should use one or the other. However, I have mixed them without any difficulties.
I prefer creating virtual environments the more standard way, but there are some scientific packages that are much easier to install using conda.

Can we have multiple tensor flow versions on Mac?

I am using Mac. I am wondering is it possible to have 2 versions of tensor flow co-existing in my computer? I pip installed tensorflow-1.13 and tensor flow-1.8 through two python virtual env. However, there seem to be some problems ...
How do I find out the corresponding c++ tensor flow library in my Mac? Where are they installed? Thanks!
Yes, you can do this with virtual environments: each virtual environment will contain a different version of TensorFlow, and you can switch from one to the other easily. There are many solutions to create virtual environments, but some of the most popular are:
conda
virtualenv
pipenv
Conda is a general-purpose, cross-platform package manager, mostly used with Python, but it can also install many other software packages. A conda environment includes everything, including Python itself, and the system binaries for the libraries you use. So you can have different conda environments with different versions of Python, and different versions of every package you want, including TensorFlow, and any C++ library your code relies on. You can install Anaconda, which is a bundle that includes Conda + Python + many scientific libraries. Or you can install miniconda which includes the bare minimum to run conda.
Virtualenv is a python library which allows you to create virtual environments strictly for Python.
pipenv is also a python library that seems to be gaining a lot of momentum right now, and includes a lot of the functionality of virtualenv.
If you are a beginner, I would recommend going with conda. You will usually run into less issues.
First, download and install either Anaconda or Miniconda.
Next, create a virtual environment:
conda create --name myenv
Then activate this virtual environment:
conda activate myenv
Now you can install all the libraries you need:
conda install whatever-library-you-need
However, not all libraries are available in conda. For example, TensorFlow 2.0 is not there yet (as of May 13th 2019). But that's okay, you can also use pip!
pip install --pre tensorflow
This will install TF 2.0 alpha.
You can then create another environment and install a different version of TF.
You can read more about the interaction between Conda and Pip on the web, but the short story is that they work well together as long as you use pip last. In short, install everything you can with conda, and finish with pip.

How to move from pip to anaconda

I'm a beginner trying to play around with machine learning. I downloaded python, and used pip to download libraries like TensorFlow, Pandas, Numpy, etc.
Now, I find that Anaconda is a better package manager to use for machine learning. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Do I have to download all the libraries with Anaconda (which I tried to do with Pandas, and it said the library is already downloaded)?
Could you guys explain to me how I can move from using pip to using anaconda? I really don't understand environments, and this package manager stuff, so please help me!
In principle there is no need to change your package manager. Simply switch to do conda install the next time you would do pip install. Think of it like this: Do you have to re-download everything when switching from internet-explorer to firefox? Probably, some things work a little different between conda and pip but for a basic beginner, these differences should be neglectable.
You could freeze your pip packages and re-install them inside a conda environment to have everything (e.g. package dependencies) neatly managed by Anaconda, which is imho good practice. Pip packages will be available in every subsequent created conda environment, so if you want to use different packages in different environments, better re-install those using conda.
There is some non-trivial difference between conda and pip, mentioned here and here.
Best practices are to use different environment for different purposes. On a conda environment, download or re-download all requirement packages for that environment. Also always install a conda package only after you are done with pip install. Using both two environment, be sure not use the "--user" on pip as conda have user priviledge issues connecting to packages installed by pip.
You can check this link for more information

Python Anaconda - no module named numpy

I recently installed Anaconda on Arch Linux from the Arch repositories. By default, it was set to Python3, whereas I would like to use Python2.7. I followed the Anaconda documentation to create a new Python2 environment. Upon running my Python script which uses Numpy, I got the error No module named NumPy. I found this rather strange, as one of the major points of using Anaconda is easy installation of the NumPy/SciPy stack...
Nevertheless, I ran conda install numpy and it installed. Now, I still cannot import numpy, but when I run conda install numpy it says it is already installed. What gives?
Output of which conda: /opt/anaconda/envs/python2/bin/conda
Output of which python: /opt/anaconda/envs/python2/bin/python
The anaconda package in the AUR is broken. If anyone encounters this, simply install anaconda from their website. The AUR attempts to do a system-wide install, which gets rather screwy with the path.

Python update from 2.7.6 to 2.7.8 - did I just lose all my previously installed modules?

Title basically states it all. I upgraded my version of Python in order to hopefully play more nicely with Mac OS 10.9, but am now unable to use some modules I need for my work (NumPy, Pandas, SciPy, Scikit-Learn, etc.) Does this upgrade automatically wipe out any previously installed modules? Do I just need to install them again? Thanks in advance.
When you upgraded, it created a new sitepackages directory structure. Your packages are not installed any more, so yes you need to reinstall them into the new version.
Before you do that, take a good look at virtual environments rather than install the modules and packages globally.
http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/virtualenvs will get you started, then google virtualenvwrapper.
I would recommend you try out the anaconda python distribution. It comes with all of these packages pre-installed, and its free. Also, in addition to pip, you can use the conda package manager which is much better for scientific packages. See http://technicaldiscovery.blogspot.com/2013/12/why-i-promote-conda.html for an explanation.
With conda, you can install numpy/scipy/pandas/etc with conda install numpy scipy pandas and it just works, and takes about 10 seconds. No compilation necessary (OTOH pip install scipy can take over 15 minutes, requires a fortran compiler, and is generally very tricky).
link: http://continuum.io/downloads

Categories