Mamba Basics

mamba is a package manager for Python. It is a reimplementation of conda in C++. The syntax is the same as conda, but it is much faster. It is recommended to use mamba instead of conda for package management.

It is recommended to create a new environment for each project and leave the base environment untouched.

In the following, we assume the environment name is cs101.

Uninstall Anaconda/miniconda

See Uninstalling Anaconda for more details.

Install Mambaforge

See Mambaforge for more details.

For Linux and macOS:

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curl -L -O "https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest/download/Mambaforge-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh"
bash Mambaforge-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh

For Windows:

Download the installer from Mambaforge and run it.

Enable the options to “Create start menu shortcuts” and “Add Miniforge3 to my PATH environment variable”.

Open a miniforge Prompt from Start Menu. Now Try:

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conda init powershell

Prevent mamba from activating the base environment automatically

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mamba config --set auto_activate_base false

Add Mambaforge to VS Code

Add the following lines to settings.json:

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    "python.condaPath": "~/mambaforge/condabin/conda",
    "python.defaultInterpreterPath": "~/mambaforge/envs/cs101/bin/python",

Create a New Environment

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mamba create -n cs101

Activate an Environment

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mamba activate cs101

Install common packages for scientific computing

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mamba install -y numpy matplotlib scipy pandas sympy numba jupyterlab plotly pytest

Use pip to install packages not available in Anaconda

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pip install rocket-fft

Install local modules/packages

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pip install -e .

In this way, the package will be installed in the current environment and the changes will be reflected immediately.

Deactivate an Environment

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mamba deactivate

List All Environments

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mamba env list

Remove an Environment

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mamba remove -n cs101 --all