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Environments

Using LCG Views

The LCG Releases provide an extensive collection of regularly updated software. The list of available software can be seen here.

After selecting an appropriate view we can load by sourcing a setup.sh file from cvmfs (this would be available on any lxplus machine): 

source /cvmfs/sft.cern.ch/lcg/views/<release>/<platform>/setup.sh

Combining a Virtual Python Env with LGC Views

If we want to customize the software packages provided by the LCG view, we can create a virtual environment on top of the view, thus only installing extra packages, or upgrading existing ones, without having to build a complete environment from scratch.

we begin by sourcing the LCG view as above: 

source /cvmfs/sft.cern.ch/lcg/views/<release>/<platform>/setup.sh
Then we can create a virtual environment and activate it 

python3 -m venv --system-site-packages myenv
source myenv/bin/activate   # activate the environment

Finally, if we need to upgrade a certain package we can use pip:

pip install --upgrade tensorflow=newer.version

Using conda

Warning

We highly recommend that you use a virtual environment on top of LCG. However it is possible to set up a complete environment from scratch using conda.

To set up a conda environment we suggest that your first increase your AFS quota, by following this guide.

If you still require more space. i.e /afs/cern.ch/user/<initial>/<username> is filling up, you can point conda to the work directory /afs/cern.ch/work/<initial>/<username>. To do this we need to edit the ~/.condarc file.

pkgs_dirs: 
  - /afs/cern.ch/work/<initial>/<username>/public/pkgs
envs_dirs:
  - /afs/cern.ch/work/<initial>/<username>/public/envs