Conda Takes Forever

My Anaconda installation was quite nimble when I installed it first. Recently, I found it difficult to install a new package leave alone update Anaconda.

After trawling through numerous help forums, here is what worked for me:

Clone your conda environment (optional)

If you want to preserve your existing conda environment, you can clone it for extracting the installation list later.

conda create -n name_of_clone_env --clone name_of_original_env

Reset original base environment to revision 0

conda install --rev 0  #(Takes quite some time)

Note that, this might downgrade your environment as appropriate and you will lose some of your software installations (remember that we have the option to clone our environment in the previous step.)

Update your conda environment

In the base environment, do a

conda update conda

Install the libmamba solver for Anaconda

Part of the reason conda is slow is because of the legacy solver. You can hasten its pace by installing the faster libmamba solver.

conda install -n base conda-libmamba-solver
conda config --set solver libmamba

Now you have a pristine base environment.

Staying nimble

Do not clutter the base environment with any packages. To install purpose specific packages,create a new environment and install those special packages. Do not pollute the base environment.