What is Miniconda and how to install it on Raspberry Pi

Miniconda is a lightweight distribution of Conda, a widely used environment and package manager in the Python ecosystem.

Raspberry Pi has limited resources compared to a desktop PC, so a lightweight solution like Miniconda is ideal to avoid system overload.

Unlike Anaconda, which includes a large number of default packages and tools, Miniconda offers a basic installation that allows you to create and manage Conda environments and then install only the packages you need.

The advantages of using Miniconda are:

1. Lightweight: Miniconda takes up less disk space because it only includes the essentials to get started.
2. Flexibility: It allows you to create custom environments with the specific versions of Python and packages you need for your project.
3. Package Control: It simplifies the installation and management of packages and their dependencies.
4. Compatibility: It is compatible with most Python packages and environments, which is ideal for projects on Raspberry Pi.

How to install Miniconda on Raspberry Pi

Before you start, make sure you have a Raspberry Pi with Raspberry Pi OS installed and updated. You can update your system with the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Now, to download Miniconda, first visit the official Miniconda page to get the download link corresponding to the ARM architecture of the Raspberry Pi.

Once we have the correct link, we use wget to download the installer on the Raspberry Pi. For example, for a Raspberry Pi 4 (ARMv8), the command would be:

wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-armv8l.sh

Then, before running the installer, we need to ensure that the file has execution permissions with the following command:

chmod +x Miniconda3-latest-Linux-armv8l.sh

We proceed to start the installation process by running:

./Miniconda3-latest-Linux-armv8l.sh

Follow the on-screen instructions, accept the license terms, and choose the installation location, which by default will be ~/miniconda3.

After the installation, the script will ask if we want to initialize Miniconda. We accept so that conda is added to our PATH. To apply the changes, we close and reopen the terminal or run:

source ~/.bashrc

Finally, to verify that Miniconda has been installed correctly, we run:

conda --version

This should display the installed version of Conda.

How to use Miniconda

Once Miniconda is installed, you can start managing your environments and packages.

Create a new environment

You can create a new environment with a specific version of Python and packages:

conda create --name my_environment python=3.9

Here, my_environment is the name of your environment and python=3.9 specifies the version of Python. You can adjust this according to your needs.

Activate the environment

To activate the newly created environment:

conda activate my_environment

Install packages

With the environment activated, you can install packages using Conda:

conda install numpy pandas

Deactivate the environment

When you finish working, you can deactivate the environment with:

conda deactivate

Remove an environment

If you no longer need an environment, you can remove it with:

conda remove --name my_environment --all