Download and install Anaconda Python and create virtual environment with Python 3.6

Download and install Anaconda Python and create virtual environment with Python 3.6 (work best with most of the deep learning libraries)

Download and install Anaconda Python 3.x:

https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/

For windows, download the windows 64 bit graphical installer and run installer to install

For Mac, download the MacOS 64 bit graphical installer and run installer to install

As part of Anaconda install process, you can optionally install PyCharm community edition as Python IDE

https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/

For Linux, copy the download link as below:

In a Linux terminal, such as putty.exe, run below command to download by type wget then paste the copy link address you just copied to clipboard, the whole command is

wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2020.02-Linux-x86_64.sh

The above command will download a shell script file:

Anaconda3-2020.02-Linux-x86_64.sh

Just run this shell scrip to install inside the Linux terminal window:

sh Anaconda3-2020.02-Linux-x86_64.sh

After you have installed Anaconda, make sure exit (log out) and enter (log in) again to update environment variable setup by Anaconda install.

Start Anaconda Navigator to create a virtual environment Spark, that uses Python 3.6 which we will use this virtual environment without affecting your existing Python environment.

If on OS command line:

If this is Windows, you need to get to Anaconda Powershell command window and run it as administrator user, by click Windows Start->Anaconda 3 (64 bit) right mouse click on Anaconda Powershell Prompt, then choose run as administrator

If this is Linux or Mac, just open a terminal window

conda update conda 
conda create -n spark python=3.6 anaconda

Install Jupyter Notebook under virtual environment Spark, launch Jupyter Notebook after install to test it

You can activate virtual environment spark on command line by:

conda activate spark

deactivate by

conda deactivate