How to Correctly Install Anaconda on Windows Subsystem for Linux – Install Anaconda on WSL2

In this Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Python tutorial, we explain how to correctly install Anaconda on WSL. Anaconda is a very useful Python development environment that can significantly speed up the Python development process. On the other hand, by installing Anaconda in WSL, you can easily test Python programs on a Linux Ubuntu environment.

The YouTube tutorial is given below.

Installation of Anaconda on WSL – Complete Instructions

First, if you do not have WSL installed on your system, open PowerShell in administrator mode, and type

wsl --install

This command will install WSL. Next, you need to restart the system. Next, after the system is rebooted, you can start Linux Ubuntu inside of the WSL environment by clicking on Start and searching for Ubuntu

This should start WSL Linus Ubuntu terminal. Next, type this

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

This will update and upgrade all the packages. Then, we need to install wget to download files. To do that, type this

sudo apt install wget -y

After that, verify the wget version

wget --version

Then, we need to install the necessary libraries:

sudo apt-get install libgl1 libglx-mesa0 libxrandr2 libxrandr2 libxss1 libxcursor1 libxcomposite1 libxi6 libxtst6

sudo apt-get install libasound2t64

The next step is to install Anaconda. First, we need to check the current distribution. Go to any of these two websites and find the most recent Anaconda distribution

https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/release-notes

https://repo.anaconda.com/archive

In our case, the most recent distribution is 2024.10-1. Consequently, the download command given below will contain that version number:

wget https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2024.10-1-Linux-x86_64.sh

Here, to adjust for your version, you just need to change the version numbers “2024.10-1”. The best strategy to double check this is to go to the actual release page given here:

https://repo.anaconda.com/archive

and to check the fill file name. Afte the command wget completes, you need to run this command to install

bash ~/Anaconda3-2024.10-1-Linux-x86_64.sh

This command will install Anaconda. Make sure that you accept the license agreement, keep the default installation folder, and type yes to enable Conda to start automatically with a terminal (this is necessary otherwise, anaconda will not be in the system path). Finally, after the installation is completed type this

conda config --set auto_activate_base False

To disable Anaconda to start with a terminal. However, this command will still keep Anaconda in the system path. Then either restart the terminal or type this

source ~/.bashrc

to automatically apply the configuration. To test anaconda type this

conda activate
conda list

These two commands will activate the Conda environment and list the Python packages that come with a base environment. Finally, to deactivate the Conda environment, type this

conda deactivate

That is it! Now you can create and run Python virtual environments by using Anaconda on Linux Ubuntu.