Installing Python

There are few ways to install Python on your system. Here we will cover WSL installation on Windows 11.

Installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

WSL gives you a Linux environment running on Windows.

If you already are using Linux or macOS, or you have WSL installed, you can skip this section.

To install WSL, first open PowerShell as an adminstrator. For this, press the Windows key, type powershell, right-click on the Windows PowerShell app and select Run as administrator. Then enter the following command:

> wsl --install

and press Enter. This will install default Linux distribution (Ubuntu). To complete the installation, restart your computer.

Once restarted, open PowerSheel again, this time as a normal user. Then start a Linux session with:

> wsl ~

If you experience any problems, please refer to Microsoft documentation.

Installing Miniconda

Miniconda is a package manager that allows you to install Python and other packages.

Execute the following commands in your terminal:

$ mkdir Downloads
$ cd Downloads
$ wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh

Once download is completed, run the installer, and follow the instructions:

$ bash Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh

To check that installation was successful, run:

$ conda --version
conda 23.3.1 # your version might be different

To prevent Miniconda from activating the base environment by default, run:

$ conda config --set auto_activate_base false

Prepare your environment

It's usual for Python developers to create a virtual environment for each project. This allows you to install different versions of Python and packages for each project.

For this book, we will create a virtual environment called pyintro:

$ conda create -n pyintro python=3.11

When you need to use this environment, you can activate it with:

$ conda activate pyintro

You can check that Python is installed by running:

$ python --version
Python 3.11.3 # your version might be different

You can also start Python shell with:

$ python

it will display the version and a prompt >>> where you can type Python commands.

Python 3.11.3
>>> print(1 + 1)
2

To exit the shell, type exit() or press Ctrl+D.

To deactivate the Conda environment, run:

$ conda deactivate