Instructions for local install of these notes
For a local install of these notes, you need to follow the instructions below to make sure that various pieces of software you will need are set up on your computer.
These are:
1. Requirements
1.1 gdal
To do the geospatial processing in Python, you will need to install the gdal package on your computer. There are specific instructiuons for that gdal that youy should follow first. Note that if you are using a windows computer, we suggest using WSL, as explained in the link. Then you must also use WSL for all of the material below.
1.2. Anaconda
First, you will need to make sure you have Python (3.6+) installed on your computer. We suggest using Anaconda, as the package list is set up to work with this. We suggest you get the most up to date version of Python available. We won't be using the additional tools such as PyCharm, so you don't need to install those for this course (you can if you want to).
The Anaconda package manager is called conda. You should make use of that for managing packages.
If you think you may have Anaconda installed, look at the material on https://conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/tasks/manage-conda.html to see if you need to update.
1.2.1 Installing Anaconda
If you choose another version of Python, you will need to convert the environment files and modify the instructions below.
Follow the instructions on https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install to install Anaconda on your local computer.
When prompted:
Do you wish the installer to initialize Anaconda3
by running conda init? [yes|no]
[yes] >>> yes
respond yes
You must check you have these installed. There is little point trying to go further unless you have this sorted!
Open a new shell (Terminal) and type:
conda env list
This should show:
# conda environments:
#
base * /Users/plewis/anaconda3
The * indicates that you have the base environment set.
If you want to use Anaconda Python as your default, look at information on https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/user-guide/faq/.
In a shell, type`:
conda activate
Then you may need to type:
conda init
though that was probably done in the setup.
You can check where you are getting your Python command from with:
which python
This should give something with anaconda3 in the name:
/Users/plewis/anaconda3/bin/python
1.3. git
You will also need to install the tool git if you don't already have it. You can check to see if you have it with:
which git
This will give something like:
/usr/local/bin/git
If you don't get that, look at the installation instruction again. There is little point trying to go further unless you have this sorted!
You may want to check if you need to update git: https://phoenixnap.com/kb/how-to-update-git
1.4. mamba
Actually, conda is pretty slow and cumbersome. A much better package manager (cross platform) is mamba. We advise you to download this and use in place of conda. Everywhere you see conda mantioned below, use mamba (after you have installed it obviously).
see mamba for install. e.g.
conda install mamba -n base -c conda-forge