Conda
From charlesreid1
What is it
Conda is an open source package manager, like Aptitude (apt-get), yum, or Homebrew.
It is independent of programming language and OS, and is designed around the needs of the scientific community. The focus on reproducibility means you have fine-grained control over software versions, and can even install multiple versions.
Anaconda, Minioconda, and Conda
First, it is recommended you use Pyenv to install conda, as that allows you fine-grained control over which version of conda you are installing and using (much like conda gives you fine-grained control over package versions). This will allow you to install multiple versions of conda, anaconda, miniconda, etc., all side-by-side.
Conda is the package management tool itself - the engine, the driver. How it is installed depends on which conda you install... Here are the differences:
Anaconda is a full-fledged version of conda, which automatically installs 150+ scientific packages and has everything set to go for you. This takes a few minutes and 300 MB.
Miniconda is a slimmed down version of conda, which only installs packages you ask it to install. This requires you to install all packages you depend on, but can be faster and use less disk space than Anaconda.
Link with more info: https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/install/download.html
Installing
Install your selected version of conda by using Pyenv.
For example, to install Python 3 via Anaconda 5.0.1, run the pyenv install command:
pyenv install anaconda3-5.0.1
To switch to that anaconda and use it, you can use the pyenv global command, then run the commands generated by pyenv init:
pyenv global anaconda3-5.0.1 eval "$(pyenv init -)"
Now typing which conda should list the pyenv shim directory containing the Anaconda version of conda.
Updating
To update conda:
conda update conda