Glossary
- Anaconda
- A downloadable, free, open source, high-performance, optimized Python and
R distribution with 100+ packages plus easy access to an
additional 620+ popular open source packages for data science including
advanced and scientific analytics. It also includes conda, an open source
package, dependency and environment manager. Thousands more open source
packages can be installed with the
conda
command. Available for Windows,
macOS and Linux, all versions are supported by the community.
- Anaconda Cloud
- A web-based repository hosting service in the cloud. Packages created
locally can be published to the cloud to be shared with others. Free
accounts on Cloud can publish packages to be shared publicly.
Paid subscriptions to Cloud can designate packages as private to
be shared with authorized users. Cloud is Anaconda’s
Anaconda Repository product made available to the public.
Repository is also available for purchase by companies that wish to
power their own on-premise version of Cloud. See
product comparison.
- Anaconda Navigator
- A desktop graphical user interface (GUI) included in all versions of Anaconda
that allows you to easily manage conda packages,
environments, channels and
notebooks without the need for the command line interface.
- Anaconda Enterprise
- Anaconda with enterprise technical support for a specific number of
users, indemnification for a select number of open source packages,
collaborative notebooks, high-performance scalability, Hadoop,
interactive visualization, governance and security. See the
subscriptions page for more
details.
- Anaconda Repository
- An enterprise server on your network where open source and proprietary
packages may be stored, retrieved and installed on a local computer.
Anaconda Repository is different from Anaconda Cloud
or the default conda repository. The
repository is used to govern access to data science assets including
packages and notebooks.
- Channels
- The locations of the repositories where conda looks for packages. Channels
may point to a Cloud repository or a private location on a remote
or local repository that you or your organization created. The
conda channel
command has a default set of channels to search
beginning with https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/ . You may override the
default channels, for example to maintain a private or internal channel.
In conda commands and in the .condarc
file, these default channels
are referred to by the channel name defaults
.
- Command Line Interface (CLI)
- A program in which commands are entered as text, one line at a time, for a
computer to execute. Also referred to as a terminal. Contrast with
Graphical User Interface (GUI).
- Conda
- A package and environment manager program bundled with Anaconda that installs
and updates conda packages and their dependencies. Also lets you easily
switch between conda environments on your local computer.
- Conda build
- A program that assembles the necessary components to create a conda package
using conda commands. A conda build is done locally with your own (optional)
clusters.
- Conda environment
- A folder or directory that contains a specific collection of conda packages
and their dependencies, so that they can be maintained and run separately without
interference from each other. For example, you may use one conda environment
for only Python 2 and Python 2 packages and maintain another conda
environment with only Python 3 and Python 3 packages.
- Conda package
- A compressed file that contains everything that a software program needs in
order to be installed and run, including system-level libraries, Python modules,
executable programs and other components. With a conda package, you do not have to
manually find and install each dependency separately. Managed with conda.
- Conda repository
- A cloud-based repository that contains 1,000+ open source certified packages
that are easily installed locally with the
conda install
command. Can be
accessed by anyone using conda commands or viewed directly at
https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/ .
- Graphical User Interface (GUI)
- A program with graphic images, icons and menus in which commands are
entered by clicking with a mouse and/or entering text in form boxes. It
is an easy-to-use overlay to the same program that is run using a
Command Line Interface (CLI). Examples are
Anaconda Navigator and Anaconda Fusion.
- Miniconda
- A minimal installer for conda. Like Anaconda, Miniconda is a free software
package that includes the Anaconda distribution and the conda package and
environment manager, but Miniconda does not include any packages other than
those dependencies needed to install it. After installing Miniconda,
you can install additional conda packages directly from the command line
with
conda install
.
- Package manager
- A collection of software tools that automates the process of installing,
upgdating, configuring and removing computer programs for a computer’s
operating system. Also known as a package management system. Conda is an
example of a package manager.
- Packages
- Software files and information about the software, such as its name, the
specific version and a description, that are bundled into a file that can be
installed and managed by a package manager.
- R packages
- Conda packages that install and run the R computer language. Examples include
R Essentials, a bundle of 80 popular, open source software programs written in
the R computer language. See http://conda.pydata.org/docs/r-with-conda.html .
- Repository
- Any storage location from which software or software assets may be retrieved
and installed on a local computer. See also Anaconda Repository and conda
repository.