How to Install Anaconda on Linux CentOS

Anaconda is a distribution of the Python and R programming languages. It is a curated bundle of specific language interpreters and add-ons. Anaconda’s user base is primarily from the scientific computing, data analytics, and machine learning communities.

Anaconda is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Multiple licenses govern Anaconda’s use; this guide installs Anaconda’s Individual Edition which is free and open source.

An Anaconda installation gives you:

• A recent and certified Python and R interpreter
• A large collection of open-source scientific computing libraries for these languages
• The conda package and environment manager
• The Anaconda Navigator graphical user interface (GUI) that is an alternative to conda

Anaconda’s main benefit is that it ensure the compatibility of all the elements listed above. Anaconda is popular amongst data scientists, researchers, and statisticians. It handles dependency and compatibility issues when working with Python and R so that users in specialized fields can focus on their research.

Anaconda can be installed either through a GUI or at on the command line. This guide focuses on installation steps for the command line on a CentOS distribution.

Follow the instructions below to install Anaconda. Installation takes around twenty minutes and consumes around 3.5 gigabytes of disk space within the users $HOME directory.

1. Navigate to your working directory. This can be your home directory.

    cd /home/example_user
   

2. Update your CentOS system packages.

    dnf upgrade
   

3. Install the bzip2 package.

    sudo dnf install bzip2
   

4. If your CentOS system does not have Wget installed, install it now.

    sudo yum install -y wget
   

5. Download the Anaconda installer.

    sudo wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh
   

   This installs Anaconda 3 and Python 3.8.

   Note

   You can navigate to the Anaconda archive to access all Anaconda installers.

6. Confirm the installer’s authenticity by running the command below. Replace Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh with the version of Anaconda you installed in the previous step.

    md5sum Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh
   

   You should see the signature of the particular release returned in the output. As of writing this guide, the output returned should resemble the following, 4cd48ef23a075e8555a8b6d0a8c4bae2 Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh. The Anaconda archive mentioned in the previous section lists integrity hashes for all the available downloads.

7. Launch the installer with the command below. Replace Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh with the version of Anaconda you installed.

    sudo bash Anaconda3-2020.11-Linux-x86_64.sh
   

   When prompted, press ENTER to continue. Agree to the license terms by typing yes.

8. Accept the default installation location, /root/anaconda3.

9. When prompted, initialize Anaconda3 by running conda init, it is recommended to type yes. The installation finishes with a “Thank you for installing Anaconda3!” message. Run the following commands to ensure you can access Anaconda and that it is in your system’s path:

    sudo -s source /root/anaconda3/bin/activate
    export PATH="/root/anaconda3/bin:$PATH"
   

   Note

   During the conda init prompt, if you type no, conda cannot modify your shell scripts. In order to initialize conda manually, run the commands below after the installation is completed.

   sudo -s source /root/anaconda3/bin/activate
   export PATH="/root/anaconda3/bin:$PATH"
   conda init
   

10. Verify the Anaconda installation by running the following command:

     conda info
    

    Depending upon your installation location, you should see an output similar to the following:

    active environment : None
           user config file : /home/example_user/.condarc
     populated config files :
              conda version : 4.9.2
        conda-build version : 3.20.5
             python version : 3.8.5.final.0
           virtual packages : __glibc=2.28=0
                              __unix=0=0
                              __archspec=1=x86_64
           base environment : /root/anaconda3  (read only)
               channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/linux-64
                              https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                              https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/linux-64
                              https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
              package cache : /root/anaconda3/pkgs
                              /home/example_user/.conda/pkgs
           envs directories : /home/example_user/.conda/envs
                              /root/anaconda3/envs
                   platform : linux-64
                 user-agent : conda/4.9.2 requests/2.24.0 CPython/3.8.5 Linux/4.18.0-305.3.1.el8_4.x86_64 almalinux/8.4 glibc/2.28
                    UID:GID : 1000:1000
                 netrc file : None
               offline mode : False

    You can also verify the conda installation by running the list or version commands:

     conda list
     conda --version
    

11. Load the Python programming shell using the python command.

     python
    

At this point, Anaconda launches the 3.8.5 release of Python, or perhaps a different version, if you installed a different Anaconda version. The Anaconda company offers a wealth of documentation and other training materials to help dive deeper into using Anaconda.