Install and setup miniforge

miniforge is a minimal installer for Conda specific to conda-forge. It is comparable to Miniconda, but with:

• conda-forge set as the default channel

• An emphasis on supporting various CPU architectures

• Optional support for PyPy in place of standard Python (aka “CPython”)

• Optional support for Mamba in place of Conda

First, install miniforge:

wget https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest/download/Mambaforge-Linux-x86_64.sh
chmod +x Mambaforge-Linux-x86_64.sh
APP_DIR="~/.local/apps"
bash Mambaforge-Linux-x86_64.sh -b -p ${APP_DIR}/mambaforge
rm -f Mambaforge-Linux-x86_64.sh

Next, add the following lines to your shell rc file (e.g., ~/.zshrc):

APP_DIR="~/.local/apps"

mmf () {
    __conda_setup="$('${APP_DIR}/mambaforge/bin/conda' 'shell.zsh' 'hook' 2> /dev/null)"
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]
    then
        eval "$__conda_setup"
    else
        if [ -f "${APP_DIR}/mambaforge/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" ]
        then
            . "${APP_DIR}/mambaforge/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
        else
            export PATH="${APP_DIR}/mambaforge/bin:$PATH"
        fi
    fi
    unset __conda_setup
}

cac () {
    current_env="$CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV"
    command -v conda >/dev/null 2>&1 || mmf
    [[ $current_env != "base" ]] && conda deactivate
    conda activate $1
}

jp () {
    cac $1 && \
    cd ~/repos && \
    jupyter lab
}

alias mbu="mamba update -c conda-forge --strict-channel-priority --all"
alias mbi="mamba install -c conda-forge --strict-channel-priority"
alias mbf="mamba env create -f"

Upon reloading your shell, you can use mbu for update all the installed packages in the current environment. Moreover, mbi install the specified package in the current environment, and mbf creates a new environment from the specified .yml file.

Next, we can activate any existing environment using cac, for example, if we can activate dev environment by issuing cac dev. Additionally, you can run an instance of Jupyter Lab from ~/repos directory with dev environment by jp dev.