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micromamba

Introduction to micromamba​

micromamba is a lightweight, fast, and standalone package manager for managing conda environments. It is part of the Mamba ecosystem and is designed to provide a minimalistic alternative to the full conda package manager. micromamba is ideal for users who need a fast and efficient way to create and manage environments without installing the full Anaconda or Miniconda distributions.

micromamba supports all the core features of conda, including environment creation, dependency resolution, and package installation. It is particularly useful for containerized environments and HPC systems where minimal overhead is desired. For more details, visit the official micromamba documentation.

Using micromamba with Modules​

To use micromamba on the terrabyte HPC system, load the micromamba module with the following command:

# consider adding the module use line to your ~/.bashrc to always make terrabyte modules available 
module use /dss/dsstbyfs01/pn56su/pn56su-dss-0020/usr/share/modules/files/
module load micromamba

Usage Examples​

Once loaded, you can start using micromamba to manage conda environments. Below are some examples of common micromamba operations:

Example 1: Create a New Environment​

To create a new environment named myenv with Python 3.9:

micromamba create -n myenv python=3.9

Example 2: Activate an Environment​

To activate the myenv environment:

micromamba activate myenv

Example 3: Install a Package​

To install a package, such as numpy, into the active environment:

micromamba install numpy

Example 4: List Environments​

To list all available environments:

micromamba env list

Example 5: Remove an Environment​

To remove an environment named myenv:

micromamba remove -n myenv --all

For additional usage instructions and configuration details, refer to the micromamba documentation.