1 Introduction
Conda, as a commonly used software in the field of Python data science, is a classic tool for managing Python environments and related dependencies. It is usually integrated into products such as Anaconda or Miniconda for daily use by users.
However, for a long time, Conda has been criticized by users for running slowly and having slow library parsing speed in many scenarios. Moreover, because Anaconda and Miniconda themselves are "commercial" software products, many companies use Anaconda and Miniconda to download and install non-open source licensed software library resources without obtaining a commercial license. This has led to Anaconda detecting the company's IP address and receiving related lawyer letters, causing a series of commercial risks.
In such a context, Conda-forge, driven by the open-source software community, has developed rapidly and provides a series of open-source tools and network resource services that are free to use, without commercial risks, and stable and efficient. Today, I want to introduce Miniforge to you, which is developed and maintained by the Conda-forge organization and can be used as an alternative to Anaconda and Miniconda.
2 Installation and Usage of Miniforge
2.1 Download and Install Miniforge
The official download page of Miniforge (https://conda-forge.org/miniforge/) hosts the installation package resources on Github:
Friends in China can accelerate the download of Miniforge installation package resources through the Tsinghua University mirror site (https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/github-release/conda-forge/miniforge/). Select the version that matches your system and download it. Taking Windows as an example, download the Miniforge3-24.3.0-0-Windows-x86_64.exe corresponding to the latest version:
After the download is complete, double-click to open and install it (it is recommended to "clean up" any previous remaining Python environments on your computer before installation):
Click "I Agree", and then click "Next" to proceed.
2.2 Configure Environment Variables
For Windows systems, since the new version of Miniforge no longer provides an option to automatically create relevant environment variables during installation, we need to manually add the relevant paths to the system PATH. For example, if my Miniforge is custom installed in C:\miniforge on my computer, I need to add at least these paths: C:\miniforge, C:\miniforge\Scripts, C:\miniforge\Library\bin:
After completing the above process, you can execute mamba -V in the terminal on your computer to check the relevant version information (Miniforge includes a minimal version of Conda and Mamba) and verify if the above configuration is completed:
For more usage, please refer to the official documentation of Mamba: https://mamba.readthedocs.io/