Installing Python and JupyterLab

Installing Python and JupyterLab#

https://aselshall.github.io/eds/L/L1/installing_python

Overview#

In this course we will use Python with Jupyterlab, which is an open-source interactive development environment (IDE) that facilitates data science and scientific computing in Python through a web-based interface.

You can install Python using different methods:

  • Anaconda (not very much recommended): Installing Python using anaconda provides a streamlined and comprehensive approach, bundling not only Python but also popular data science libraries and tools. This video for example shows how to install Python with Anaconda, the different tools that Anaconda provides, how to create a shortcut for jupyterl lab, and how to get started.

    • Pros: It simplifies the setup process, ensuring compatibility among packages.

    • Cons: Too much time and too much space needed and you will get a lot of tools that you will not use for this course

  • Miniconda (recommended):

    • Pros: Light weight version of Anaconda

    • Cons: You would need to do few extra steps as shown in this tutorial

  • Installing Python manually (not recommended):

    • Pros: Allows for more control over specific versions

    • Cons: Requires much additional effort in managing dependencies and configurations

  • FGCU AppsAnywhere (not recommended): If you cannot install Python on your machine, FGCU appsanywhere has Anaconda.

    • Pros: You do not need to install anything and you can use Jupyterlab on the cloud

    • Cons: Many features such as adding Jupyterlab extensions will be disabled; old version of Python 3.8x; can create sync issues with OneDrive.

This tutorial shows you how to:

  • install Miniconda that will install Python for you

  • use Miniconda to install JupyterLab

  • create a JupyterLab shortcut

Installing Python and JupyterLab#

1. Install Python with Miniconda#

You can easily install Python through Minoconda from Minconda webpage. You can find more information at GeoPython - Installing Python.

After the installation is complete, from Windows Start Menu, open Anaconda Prompt (Miniconda3) and type:

python --version

This will return to you the Python version that you have installed (e.g., Python 3.11.5).

Note: Make sure you that you have a 64-bit system. If you do not know: Use the search icon near “Start Menu” and search for “About” that will take you to “Settings”: “About” where you can know if you have a 32-bit or 64-bit processor.

2. Install and run JupyterLab#

You do not want to use Python in a back screen, so you need to install a graphical user interface (GUI). For programming languages, a GUI is called an interactive development environment (IDE). The IDE that we will use for this course is JupyterLab, which is an open-source IDE for Python, Julia, R, MATLAB/Octave, and a few other programming languages.

In Python, we generally use pip or conda for installation. For JupyterLab installation details you can check the JupyterLab documentation, or follow these steps:

Open your Anaconda Prompt (Miniconda3) from the Windows Start menu and install JupyterLab with pip by running this command:

pip install jupyterlab

Alternatively, you can install JupyterLab with conda with conda-forge channel by running this command:

conda install -c conda-forge jupyterlab

Once installed, launch JupyterLab with:

jupyter lab

3. Create JupyterLab shortcut#

Each time you use JupyterLab, you do not want to open an Anaconda Prompt (Miniconda3) and type jupyter lab, so you can create a shortcut to automatically launch JupyterLab. Here are the steps:

Create Anaconda Prompt Shortcut: Drag Anaconda Prompt (Miniconda3) from Start Menu to Desktop, which will create an Anaconda Prompt (Miniconda3) shortcut. You can check that by clicking on it and then typing jupyter lab which will launch JupyterLab.

Customize Anaconda Prompt Shortcut: To customize the shortcut to launch JupyterLab automatically, right click on your shortcut and select “Properties”. Then at the end of the “Target” cell type:

& jupyter lab && exit

At my machine the content of the “Target” cell now looks something like this:

%windir%\System32\cmd.exe "/K" C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\miniconda3\Scripts\activate.bat C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\miniconda3 & jupyter lab && exit

If this is unclear, check this YouTube video.

4. Change JupyterLab shortcut icon (optional)#

In case you want your icon to look nice:

  • Download this jupyterlab icon and save it anywhere you like.

  • If you do not like this icon, get any other icon that you like that has the extension .ico.

  • Right click on the shortcut: “Change Icon”: “Browse”: Select the icon from where you saved it.

  • You can now drag your icon from Desktop to Taskbar to make your JupyterLab handy.

5. Install basic libraries#

From the miniconda terminal install these libraries one by one. You can install all of them now or before the lesson.

pip install pyarrow

pip install pandas

pip install matplotlib

pip install lckr_jupyterlab_variableinspector

pip install numpy

pip install cartopy

pip install xarray

pip install netCDF4

The following are optional libraries:

pip install geemap

This library will not work for python version 3.12 and you need to downgrade your version to 3.11

pip install jupyter-ai

Next steps#

Now you have JupyterLab and Python installed, you can start with these:

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