Dealing with Anaconda Python in Linux

Anaconda is a very handy Python distribution that bundles a slew of scientific packages along with the handy conda package manager, allowing you to easily update your packages to the latest versions. However, it doesn’t seamlessly integrate with Linux: the installer will simply add a line to your shell configuration file (e.g., ~/.bashrc) prepending the Anaconda bin directory to the PATH environment variable. This means that Anaconda’s python and other packages will override Linux’s system python and packages (to see this, run which python). For the most part, this shouldn’t be an issue, but in some cases it can cause trouble.

For example, if you use the yaourt package manager on Arch Linux, you’ll run into two problems with Anaconda Python. First, Anaconda’s curl will break yaourt. Second, yaourt will blindly install Python packages into the Anaconda Python package directory. This sometimes causes conflicts with Python packages installed through pacman (which are properly installed into the system Python package directory). I ran into this problem when installing Reddit Terminal Viewer.

If you just want to use Anaconda but not have it take over like this, there’s an easy fix: instead of prepending the Anaconda bin directory to PATH (which gives it priority), simply append it so that system Python (/usr/bin/python) and packages take precedence. In your shell configuration (e.g., ~/.bashrc), change the line added by the Anaconda installer:

# Default configuration of Anaconda installer
#export PATH="/path/to/anaconda3/bin:$PATH"

# Append Anaconda so that it doesn't override system Python
export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/anaconda3/bin"

Now, python (and curl, for example) will still be the system version, but Anaconda applications will also be available (jupyter, ipython, conda, etc). My Anaconda workflow is to work in a Jupyter notebook along with a text editor. Since jupyter is tied to the Anaconda python, it continues to work seamlessly as before.

If you want to temporarily use Anaconda’s python at the shell, just use conda’s environment manager to activate/deactivate it:

source activate <env>
source deactivate

The root environment uses the standard Anaconda python installation, so to activate the Anaconda’s python, just do source activate root. (Note: this only affects the current shell session).

Bonus: Python linting and auto-completion in Vim

Since Vim (and Neovim) are compiled against the system python, they won’t work with your Anaconda packages by default. For example, running pylint as a syntax checker in Syntastic or Neomake will use the system python and give errors when you import Anaconda packages. The solution is very simple: just include your Anaconda package directory in the PYTHONPATH environment variable. This way, the system python will be able to import the Anaconda packages.

In your shell configuration (e.g., ~/.bashrc), append your Anaconda site-packages directory as such:

export PYTHONPATH="$PYTHONPATH:/path/to/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages"

Also, the (Neovim-only) python completions package deoplete-jedi allows you to specify which python interpreter to use for the completion server. It seems that setting PYTHONPATH isn’t sufficient (for example, I couldn’t get pandas completions to work). Add the following line to your Vim config (with the correct path):

let g:deoplete#sources#jedi#python_path = '/path/to/anaconda3/bin/python'