Installing Anaconda

WARNING: the use of the bash shell is required by Anaconda.

You can download Anaconda at:

      https://www.anaconda.com/download

We recommend that you click on "Get Additional Installers", located below the green Download button, and download a command-line installer.  We've heard of issues or confusion with the graphical installer.

Choose the version of Python that suits your other Python needs. DRAGONS v3.0 is compatible and has been tested with Python 3.7.   Starting with version 3.0, DRAGONS is no longer compatible with Python 2.  

Important for Mac M1/M2:  Download the "non (M1)" anaconda.  This is only available if you go to the "Additional Installers" section at the bottom of the download page (or click on "Get Additional Installers". This will seamlessly get the Intel binaries of DRAGONS (we don't have M1/M2-compatible binaries yet).  Rosetta will run Intel binaries.

Important for Linux users: The minimum requirement for Anaconda is now CentOS 7 or equivalent.

If you have downloaded the graphical anaconda installer, follow the graphical installer instructions. Install in your home directory, which should be the default.  If you have difficulty with any of the steps below, please consult the official Anaconda documentation.

If you have downloaded the command-line installer, type the following in a terminal, replacing the .sh file name to the name of the file you have downloaded. The /bin/bash -l line is not needed if you are already using bash. The command-line installer allows for more customization of the installation. ($ indicates the terminal prompt.)

    $ /bin/bash -l
    $ chmod a+x Anaconda3-2019.10-MacOSX-x86_64.sh
    $ ./Anaconda3-2019.10-MacOSX-x86_64.sh

If you wish to prevent the Anaconda "base" environment from loading automatically, giving you control of when to activate the conda environments, run:

    $ conda config --set auto_activate_base false

Verifying Anaconda installation

Make sure that ~/anaconda3/bin/activate is in your PATH by doing:

    $ which activate

The Anaconda installer should have added conda configurations to the ~/.bash_profile for you. If activate is not found, try:

    $ source ~/.bash_profile

If activate is still not found, you might have to add export PATH=~/anaconda3/bin:$PATH to your ~/.bash_profile using your favorite text editor, and run the source command above again.

Notes

• Sometimes the Anaconda installer will install the software in ~/anaconda2 or ~/anaconda3 instead of simply ~/anaconda. Just check in your home directory which one of the three possibilities was used.


• The code Anaconda adds to the .bash_profile will automatically activate anaconda. To activate or deactivate Anaconda manually:

          $ conda activate
          $ conda deactivate
          

Setting up Anaconda Channels

Remember that Anaconda requires the use of the bash shell. tcsh or csh will not work. If you are using (t)csh, your first step is:

    $ /bin/bash -l

Now that Anaconda is installed, we add the needed astronomy software and its dependencies from the conda-forge channel and the Gemini channel. Those channels host the conda astronomy packages and a community-maintained dependency stack. The channels need to be defined only once.

    $ conda config --add channels conda-forge
    $ conda config --add channels http://astroconda.gemini.edu/public