Installing Python

In order to complete the tutorials and exercises, you should download a python distribution on your own computer. While the Mac computers in the campus computer labs have python installed on them, these versions may not have some of the packages that we will use in this course. The purpose of this page is to help you to install Python and different Python packages onto your own computer. While it is possible to install Python from the Python homepage https://www.python.org/, we highly recommend using Anaconda which is an open source distribution of the Python and R programming languages for large-scale data processing and scientific computing. Anaconda combines a basic python distribution with many packages that are commonly used to do science. This makes life a lot easier for us, the users, in the long run.

Install Python on Windows

Following steps should work on all Windows 7 and 10 computers.

Download Anaconda installer (64 bit) for Windows.

Install Anaconda to your computer by double clicking the installer and install it into a directory you want (you will need admin privileges). If promped, install it to all users and use default settings.

Test that Anaconda´s package manager called conda works by opening a command prompt as a admin user (http://www.howtogeek.com/194041/how-to-open-the-command-prompt-as-administrator-in-windows-8.1/) and running the command conda --version. If the command returns a version number of conda (e.g. conda 4.5.9) everything is working correctly.

Install Python on macOS

OSX users can visit the Anaconda downloads page and click to download the latest 64-Bit Graphical Installer for the Python 3 version of Anaconda.

Downloading the latest Anaconda for Mac

You probably want the graphical option, but you do you.

Run the installer and follow the prompts to install Anaconda using the default options.

Then, open up the Terminal application and enter conda --version to verify a correct installation.

Note

The conda command in the Windows Command Prompt or Mac Terminal can be used to install packages that were not included with the base distribution, though we probably won’t need to do that in this course.

Updating

Once you start using Anaconda or the Spyder IDE, you may get the occasional “software needs updating” dialog box popping up. Updating is easy from the Command prompt (windows) or Terminal (Mac). Simply execute the command conda update spyder and follow the instructions.