Miniconda — A lighter version of Anaconda | Installation and setup for Windows

Overview:

• What is Miniconda and how it differ from Anaconda
• Who should use Miniconda
• System Requirements(Windows)
• Installation and setting up conda environments in Miniconda

What is Miniconda and how does it differ from Anaconda?

Miniconda is a simple Conda installer with a few handy packages up its sleeves, unlike Anaconda which has a straight 700 plus packages installer making it short and straightforward.

Miniconda is just a management system whereas the Anaconda comes with pre-installed packages and other tools used in ML and data science. Miniconda is just as efficient and required in the market as is the Anaconda. But choosing a better one depends wholly on your needs and requirements and what you need considering the space on your disk to a large extent.

Who should use Miniconda?

As per Anaconda docs.

Choose Miniconda if you:

• Do not mind installing each of the packages you want to use individually.
• Do not have time or disk space to install over 1500 packages at once, and/or
• Just want fast access to Python and the conda commands, and wish to sort out the other programs later.

System Requirements:

• License: Free use and redistribution under the terms of the EULA for Miniconda.
• Operating system: Windows 8 or newer
• If your operating system is older than what is currently supported, you can find older versions of the Miniconda installers in our archive that might work for you.
• System architecture: Windows- 64-bit x86, 32-bit x86
• Minimum 400 MB disk space to download and install.

Installation and setting up conda environments in Miniconda

Before installation, please uninstall all Python versions from the system.

• Download for 64-bit windows by clicking here. Install it and add the conda to the path. If you forget to add it to path then re -run the installer and add it to the path
• Restart the system to complete the setup.
• To check all conda environments :

conda env list

• To activate an environment:

conda activate myenv

Where myenv is the name of your environment

• To create a new environment:

conda create -n myenv python=3.10

Here myenv is the name of the new environment. You can also specify a Python version you want to install in that particular environment. This comes in handy if you need a specific version of python for a project. If not mentioned, it will automatically install a python version which was shipped with it. In my case, it was 3.9.12.

That's it. You have now successfully installed miniconda in your system. Activate a conda environment and start working on your projects. It comes with handy packages like pip so you can easily install all those libraries and can create a new Python environment.

Thanks and keep learning.

ALL THE BEST!