Virtual Environments

A virtual environment is a self-contained directory tree that contains a Python installation for a particular version of Python along with additional packages. It solves the problem of one application’s package requirements conflicting with another’s.

Two popular tools used for creating virtual environments are the built-in venv module and conda (or the much faster and more reliable mamba). For virtual environments created using conda/mamba, you can use either conda/mamba or pip to install additional packages, while venv-created environments should stick with pip.

mamba

conda install mamba -c conda-forge
mamba create -n landlab
mamba activate landlab

conda

conda create -n landlab
conda activate landlab

venv

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Note that you will need to activate this environment every time you want to use it in a new shell.

Helpful links on managing virtual environments:

• conda environments.

• venv environments.