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I dont know if I have missed it, but this is not clear to me. I already have miniconda on my machine and I want now to install mamba. How this should be done please, I am supposed to download/run the correct mambaforge installer? Does this co-exist happily side by side with conda or you are supposed to have just one of them on your system. Doing something like conda install mamba is not recommended

Aenaon
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  • I'd recommend just installing mambaforge from https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge#mambaforge. In the environments you create with that you can use conda or mamba as necessary. – Matt Pitkin Jul 25 '23 at 08:45
  • @MattPitkin maybe you should be more specific; your recommendation is to remove miniconda and have only mambaforge installed? – FlyingTeller Jul 25 '23 at 08:52
  • Thanks Matt, but Im confused because mamba should go in the base environment. This is where also conda goes – Aenaon Jul 25 '23 at 08:53
  • @FlyingTeller yes, I'd suggest removing miniconda and just having mambaforge as a direct replacement – Matt Pitkin Jul 25 '23 at 09:05
  • a, ok, thanks Matt – Aenaon Jul 25 '23 at 09:10

2 Answers2

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Mamba can be added to any install. However, it is recommended to convert to have the conda-forge channel prioritized. Be aware that this is generally incompatible with Anaconda base1, but works fine with Miniconda base.

Essentially,

## prioritize 'conda-forge' channel
conda config --add channels conda-forge

## update existing packages to use 'conda-forge' channel
conda update -n base --all

## install 'mamba'
conda install -n base mamba

Now you can use mamba instead of conda.

[1]: The need to prioritize conda-forge channel is effectively incompatible with the Anaconda base because the combination of a large environment (Anaconda) and plus a larger package search space (Conda Forge) make the solution space enormous. Basically every question on SO about things taking infinitely long to solve is really about this. If you are starting from Anaconda base you'll want to first gut out the base environment to be minimal (remove the anaconda package).

merv
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Mamba is a replacement conda package manager. They do not co-exist happily as they both rely on base environment for their dependencies. Recommended way is to install mambaforge or micromamba separately as a replacement.

documentation: https://mamba.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

user2423830
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  • It is nice to have options but doesnt this cause a fragmented landscape? So, we now have three package managers, pip, conda, mamba. Why not discontinuing conda and switch to mamba since the latter is better, something similar to python 2.7 and 3+ – Aenaon Jul 25 '23 at 10:29
  • @Aenaon I have added a link that have related information. Mamba project rewritten some parts of conda code in c++ for performance improvement but it still relies on conda-forge channel as a package repository. [link](https://stackoverflow.com/a/72959278/2423830) – user2423830 Jul 25 '23 at 10:47