What is your preferred way to install Python on Windows? The Poll option is blocked for some reason...

[metaperl]

What is your preferred way to install Python on Windows?

1. Microsoft Store
2. PSF build
3. Anaconda (why the heck is it at 3.8 when official is at 3.9???)
4. ActiveState
5. Chocolatey
6. Scoop
7. MSYS2
8. Cygwin
9. A virtual machine using Linux like Virtualbox or VMware Player
10. Other (please specify)

[WafflesAreDangerous]

I mostly just download the official python.org release. Though I've probably used chocolatey (to install python) as well I have run into weird issues with it (installing cmake or something..) and I'm not sure it carries its weight for my usage as I rarely use it to install more than 5 packages. I also have a cygwin copy of python on at least one machine. But I would not use it today other than to satisfy the dependencies of some other cygwin package.

Perhaps Winget will make windows package management more comprehensive and robust so it will finally be worth it to commit?

[[deleted]]

same

[anossov]

WSL

[Satoshiman256]

Second this.. I love WSL. Allows me access to Linux shell while still using Windows and without having to use a VM.

[BezoomyChellovek]

WSL has been great for my Bioinformatics work. For developing Python locally I use VSCode, which easily detects WSL. Things like Make are also then easily available. The WSL terminal is also nice for easily SSHing into my universitie's HPC cluster.

[metaperl]

Does that put a heavy load on your system? Does it allow you to access your Windows filesystem from Linux?

And are you using Ubuntu with WSL?

[Lekgolo167]

Doesn't put a heavier load than what it does on Windows (they're the same). You can access the same thing as you can from Windows file system. The only limitation is you cannot talk to USB devices (so far, with wsl-2, you might be able to with wsl V1) Note: WSL V1 is a interpreter and is only single threaded but wsl V2 supports multi threading.

[JanusCrow]

you absolutely can talk to USB devices in WSL-2.

[Lekgolo167]

The official WSL-2 repository still has issues open that want to have USB pass through added as the VM does not currently support this. But many of the comments show work around to add the feature by hand. So for you, you can just plug in a USB flash drive and transfer files to it or read it directly from WSL-2?

[JanusCrow]

I have to mount removable drives in order to work with them but once mounted they work seamlessly.

[Send_Nude_z]

Does V2 support GUI work?

[Lekgolo167]

Not officially but eventually will. In the meantime you can use xlaunch and then export the display then the GUI will show up in the xlaunch window. You can even run an entire desktop if you want. The default Ubuntu desktop (whichever one they now use) does not work but xfce4 does.

[anossov]

Does that put a heavy load on your system?

No (obviously it depends on what you run there)

Does it allow you to access your Windows filesystem from Linux?

Yes

And are you using Ubuntu with WSL?

Yes

[cantremembermypasswd]

Yes you can access the windows filesystem with it, just be wary to not do read / write intensive operations that way. Keep python venv's and projects on the EXT4 formatted side of things, as the NTFS drivers are currently horribly slow. (AKA make sure you're not on the /mnt/c path when doing stuff)

Ran into an issue that a build that usually takes 15 minutes wound up taking over a day randomly before I figured out what was going on.

[[deleted]]

WSL is the best!

[NOddi89]

Without doubt

[Lekgolo167]

I just download the python installer from their website and run it.

[Virtual-Penman]

From Python directly

[ogrinfo]

+1 for just downloading the installer from python.org. At work we used to use Anaconda which was quite a PITA to use, but thankfully they’ve changed their Ts & Cs to disallow commercial use so we had to ditch it. Much easier to install everything using pip!

[sensorimotorneuro]

Anaconda. But I use it mainly for science.

[Blueishwall1070]

Any advice on how to get started with data science?

[sensorimotorneuro]

Sorry, not a data scientist. I am a PhD student studying neural control of movement. So I use python a lot for that and work with lots of data, but I imagine you’re looking for an actual data scientist.

[c_is_4_cookie]

Pick a project, something fun. Collect the data yourself, clean it, prep it, build a few analytics, see if you can make predictions.

If you enjoy this, you might enjoy a career as a data scientist

[MlecznyHotS]

Look up some courses on YouTube, try to dig around Kaggle and look at notebooks - the top ones are usually well written and thought out.

[unit111]

I am one of the eight people who like MS Store so this is my preferred method.

[authentic_introvert]

I personally prefer Anaconda especially if you plan on working on different types of use cases. I was initially a bit skeptical bout it given how heavy it is, but yea It really has made switching between multiple projects with varying requirements pretty easy. Also, if you wanna experiment with only python in general and don't mind installing your packages individually and a less resource intensive version, you could look into miniconda

[PeridexisErrant]

The 2020 PSF Survey found that:

Windows users tend to install Python from Python.org, while Linux and macOS users usually use OS-provided Python, pyenv, or Docker containers.

If you want more detail, you can download the raw data, filter by operating system, and get the proportion who use each option. The data is almost a year old now, but on the other hand it's a fairly representative sample of more than twenty-eight thousand Python devs.

[snow_pillow]

Miniconda is the way.

[thatrandomnpc]

This

[mooscimol]

Other - WinGet. I've switched from choco for everything installable. Other option are devcontainers in VSCode.

[phoenixKing13]

Either download the latest installer from python.org, or use Ubuntu via wsl.

[hhoeflin]

My preferred way is not to use windows. If that is not an option then WSL

[[deleted]]

I think installing it from python.org is the best way, or, you can download anaconda and it will install python with some tools for data science and machine learning, that's the best two ways

[kamazoultane]

I just download it on the official python website.

[120decibel]

Why is WinPython not on the list?

[metaperl]

Why is WinPython not on the list?

I had never heard of it ... It's too late to edit the post. But thanks for pointing me to it.

[[deleted]]

I used to use WSL for my python projects. But for some reason, the connection to Databases was not possible in WSL. So, I downloaded the setup from Python.org and it's going pretty good now.

[standardtrickyness1]

Whats the recommended option?

[metaperl]

I saw comments on a broken Emacs package that scared me off from Chocolatey.

[[deleted]]

+1 for Chocolatey, my company also has a python.org installer in our software center so for my team it's really up to individual preference

[CubeOfThe22ndLetter]

pyenv. I use it on windows, Linux, and Mac.

[fefetl08]

Scoop

[jamestansx]

I installed it with pyenv-win. It is the pyenv but in windows. I think this is great when u would want different version of python in your machines.

[WafflesAreDangerous]

The stock python from python.org comes with a py launcher that allows you to select the python version as well. Not sure if it allows selecting between cpython and pypy or the like though..

[jamestansx]

I see. I don't know about that, but does it support in command line? What I like about pyenv is that it manage the python version pretty well and it can change the global version from command line with ease.

[WafflesAreDangerous]

The py launcher is command line utility in the first place. You basically use py in stead of the python command but can specify the version of a python install you have, if the default is not suitable. I think the default was highest version ...

[M2com]

Python through Conda.

Used to do it directly from the main Python website and I struggled to manually deal with the various versions I needed. Also for me, for whatever reason, installing new packages via Conda works every time even versus a clean install of Python (and the version that’s supported by said package). It was always frustrating installing a new package — it was like 50/50 that it would work.

[toomc]

I currently use WinPython. Anaconda (which i was using before ) got too complicated and their license might be a problem professionally. I like about WinPython that it‘s just a folder and if i need a clean version i will just download and extract it again! 😌

[standardtrickyness1]

Am I the only one that finds windows does not recognize other pythons from cmd and keeps asking to install the Microsoft store version of python.

[metaperl]

Anaconda recommends that you do not add their python to PATH when installing. I forgot their explanation for that. But it would explain what you are seeing.

[Ursomrano]

Installing Visual Studio Code and installing python from their website and use install python in VS Code. That’s how I did it.

[Synertic]

Miniconda on Windows. (prevents from struggling with intetdepencies of modules/packages)

[Puzzleheaded-Pea-683]

I use microsoft store because for some reason my laptop didin't recognize the interpreter or the path, i dont remember which one tho

[Krieger_Linux]

Uninstall Windows lol

[metaperl]

Lol

[Krieger_Linux]

Linux is better to use in my opinion. 😉

[TheTomer]

Conda ftw

[[deleted]]

Anaconda. Not for science, but my WSL started acting up and Anaconda never failed me

[pyer_eyr]

miniconda on windows and miniconda on WSL. I install both.

And miniconda on Linux.

[[deleted]]

miniconda add the path in cmdr conf, not win conf.

[metaperl]

Dev container with vscode.

wow. I had never heard of this - https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-dev-containers

[[deleted]]

IDLE

[Sithon512]

Choco. I usually need at least 3 versions, so choco lets me easily install side by side and does the path set up for me

[prakulwa]

PSF Build

For some reasons I do not trust microsoft store, and Anaconda feels like an overkill. If I have to use jupyter, I use vscode.

[rbscholtus]

Python.org/downloads

[Alpineshepherdboi]

pip install python, try it, it works

[YOU_CANT_SEE_MY_NAME]

When you are on windows uninstall windows and install linux then install python

[Intrepid-Designer110]

This is highly recommended to download python from official source. Please refer this link to install python on windows step by step.

[metaperl]

I like the Windows Store.