How to Create New Environments in Anaconda
Installing Anaconda — Step 1
I recommend you download the Python 3.7 version. If you already have Anaconda installed
Anaconda can be downloaded here:
Installing Anaconda on mac os
Installing Anaconda on windows
Running Anaconda — Step2
Creating A New Environment — Step 3
You can create a new environment with the following command. After -n is where we specify the environment name. This is followed by the version of python we want to install.
conda create -n tensorflow python=3.7
We then need to activate our environment. The commands differ slightly between Windows and Mac. After entering the command, you should see that (base) has now changed to (your environment name). This means that any commands entered from this point on will be executed within that environment.
For mac :
source activate tensorflow
For Windows:
conda activate tensorflowIf you want to know your environment directory, you can find it via your OS file system. For example my file path looks like this.
cd /opt/anaconda3/envs
Installing a Python Kernel — Step 4
We need to create a Python Kernel inside of our environment so that we can run our code. Anaconda used to create a kernel by default. However, this is no longer the case, so we must do it manually.
First we need install ipykernel:
pip install ipykernel
We now need to install a kernel. Again, make sure you have activated your environment, (tensorflow), in this case. To install a kernel, enter the following command. The variables after ‘ — name’ and display-name will need to be set to the name of your environment. If entered correctly, you’ll see a response ‘Installed kernelspec’.
python -m ipykernel install — user --name tensorflow --display-name “tensorflow”
Jupyter Notebook Setup — Step 5
After creating a new environment, we essentially start from scratch with an empty environment. Therefore, to use Jupyter Notebook we will need install it via Anaconda. Again, make sure you have activated your new environment.
conda install jupyter
After installing Jupyter, we can now launch Jupyter Notebook with the following command:
jupyter notebook
After entering the command above, a Jupyter notebook server should launch via your default browser.
Make sure you are using the correct kernel!
This is where most people go wrong. After creating a new notebook, look at the top right of the screen. Ensure you have the correct kernel selected (i.e. the kernel we just installed to our environment.) If your kernel is not correct, you change kernel manually as shown below.
