[melbourne-pug] Install ‘conda’ using Debian package manager

[Ben Finney]

Scott Wales <scott.wales at unimelb.edu.au> writes:

> The packages in your yaml file are most likely available on PyPI,
> although please do be mindful that the instructors will most likely be
> unable to spend time helping you with installation issues during the
> tutorial itself.

Yes, I'm well aware of that, which is why I'm trying to get this solved
before fronting up to the tutorial.

> As a side note I don't believe that PyPI does any vetting of what gets
> uploaded

My point is that Anaconda *itself* is operating outside the operating
system package manager, and reportedly will make a bunch of changes in
my user environment when installed.

This is not needed for Python or Pip. In order to install Python and
Pip, there is no need for me to download some arbitrary shell script and
run that. It's managed as part of my operating system's package
repositories.

Nor does installing Python or Pip make arbitrary changes in my user
environment.

Yes, the packages I install from PyPI are outside of the operating
system package manager also, but the tools that manage them are not
going to allow arbitrary changes on the filesystem and my environment.


I think it is alarmingly bad advice to say “prepare for this tutorial by
downloading this third-party shell script and running it on your
computer”. So I've been trying to find a way that is more secure than
that.

Evidently Anaconda assumes people are happy to run arbitrary shell
scripts, so I may have to just treat it as something to be isolated from
everything else – in a separate filesystem, as some have suggested –
merely to ensure it doesn't mess with my user environment, and can be
cleanly uninstalled.

That's pretty disappointing, because it means that anything I learn in
the tutorial I have to toss away afterward and try to get working with
packages that aren't in Anaconda.

All of this I was hoping to avoid. Thanks for the discussion, it
confirms that Anaconda is teaching very bad practices to newcomers.

-- 
 \     “Welchen Teil von ‘Gestalt’ verstehen Sie nicht?  [What part of |
  `\                ‘gestalt’ don't you understand?]” —Karsten M. Self |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney