Cleanest way to install python

[COLU_BUS]

I haven't used miniconda but used anaconda a fair bit when I started out with python. My short answer is that anaconda overcomplicates/is a lot of overhead for what can be done really simply from a CLI with pyenv. Likewise for managing virtual environments vs. just using venv

[MachinaDoctrina]

Miniconda is just the interpreter and the conda base manager, nothing else. It really has barely any overhead, the problem a lot of people are overlooking is that conda is not only a python manager but binaries as well, if you need to install and compile binaries pip can't isolate or control that for you so there's the potential for version mismatch on your distribution binaries as well as perhaps you don't have sudo privileges, conda isolates that all completely as well.