Change conda related sections in the README and the docs

[adam-urbanczyk]

Small improvements of the conda installation instructions.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Merging #980 (b0b66cb) into master (23de5cc) will increase coverage by 0.00%.
The diff coverage is 100.00%.

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##           master     #980   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   96.26%   96.26%           
=======================================
  Files          40       40           
  Lines        9342     9344    +2     
  Branches     1103     1104    +1     
=======================================
+ Hits         8993     8995    +2     
  Misses        205      205           
  Partials      144      144           

Impacted Files	Coverage Δ
cadquery/assembly.py	95.04% <100.00%> (+0.04%)	⬆️

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[jmwright]

@adam-urbanczyk This PR looks good to me except that I haven't used miniforge, so I don't know it's strengths/weaknesses vs miniconda.

[adam-urbanczyk]

@jmwright miniforge is a minimal conda installation configured to use the (free) conda-forge channel (which is the channel we are relying on). I also added this based on the comments on bloat floating around HaD/HN. I also added section on portable win install.

[jmwright]

Ok, thanks @adam-urbanczyk .

@Jojain since you're already involved in this discussion, will you be the other official reviewer? We normally try to have two devs check a PR before merging unless it's a super simple one.

[Jojain]

Sure if you want too, I will try this new installation process

[jmwright]

@Jojain If you have time, please do.

[Jojain]

@adam-urbanczyk
I just tried the miniforge commands lines without success.
curl.exe -o miniforge.exe https://superuser.com seems to install something but without more info (I don't know what is curl)

Then
start /wait "" miniforge.exe /InstallationType=JustMe /RegisterPython=0 /NoRegistry=1 /NoScripts=1 /S /D=%USERPROFILE%\Miniforge3 Fails with : System cannot execute specified program

[jmwright]

It installs fine for me in Ubuntu, so maybe the problem is specific to Windows?

[jmwright]

The installation of miniforge works on a Lubuntu 20.04 VM, but the environment solve always fails when I try to run the following line.

conda install -c conda-forge -c cadquery cadquery=master

[adam-urbanczyk]

@adam-urbanczyk I just tried the miniforge commands lines without success. curl.exe -o miniforge.exe https://superuser.com seems to install something but without more info (I don't know what is curl)

Then start /wait "" miniforge.exe /InstallationType=JustMe /RegisterPython=0 /NoRegistry=1 /NoScripts=1 /S /D=%USERPROFILE%\Miniforge3 Fails with : System cannot execute specified program

I made a stupid copy-paster error - should be corrected now @Jojain .

[Jojain]

I got the install successful. I've read very quickly what is miniforge, if I understand well (put aside what's under the hood) miniforge is miniconda with the default channel setup to conda-forge ? So one could install cadquery with the following :
conda install -c cadquery cadquery=master ?

Since I have also miniconda installed I don't know which one is activating but if I run
conda activate base in a cmd prompt does it activate the miniforge env or I need to use your command line (for activation?)

[jmwright]

@Jojain On Linux, I run something like $HOME/miniforge/bin/activate to make sure I have the right one (notice the path has miniforge and not minconda. That's assuming that miniconda is not already activated for the current shell.

[jmwright]

I swapped Anaconda out for Miniforge on my main Ubuntu 20.04 install and it works fine. However, the solve still always fails on the Lubuntu 20.04 VM that I've also tried it on. Below is what it always shows.

[adam-urbanczyk]

Can you share (link to) the vm image?

[jmwright]

VM image download is here. I ran it in VirtualBox.

[lorenzncode]

@jmwright This could be an out of memory issue. I've also experienced that with conda when allocating too little memory. I've had it fail when allocating 4GB. I couldn't reproduce that today at 4GB. Here at 2GB (dmesg):

One advantage of miniforge is it also provides mamba. You might try replacing conda install with mamba install and see if it completes successfully.

I checked RSS of the conda/mamba install process today on Ubuntu 20.04.
conda: peak 2.7GiB (separate install from above, with more memory allocated)
mamba: peak 280MiB

[Jojain]

I don't really want to break my miniconda install to try miniforge alone, but I have been successful with the installation and activate on my Windows computer, so I think it's good (I've also read it's bundled directly with mamba ?)

[jmwright]

If mamba uses less memory, should we consider using it by default instead of the conda command? I'm not familiar with mamba, so I don't know the implications.

[Jojain]

I don't know about the memory but it's faster than conda and gives better error message when there is dependencies conflicts (however for some reason mamba activate myenv doesn't work so I use both conda and mamba )

[fedorkotov]

I have just nuked miniconda install on Windows and replaced it with mambaforge (condaforge variant with mamba preinstalled in base environment). It is fast. And mamba activate envname works. But importing cadquery fails see #990. Don't know if mamba or condaforge have anything to do with this problem though. My environment for cadquery in miniconda (that is now destroyed) worked but it was not updated for a long time.

[adam-urbanczyk]

@jmwright @Jojain I think I fixed all the defects. Do you want to change from miniforge to mambaforge or leave as-is?

BTW: I cannot reproduce #990.

[jmwright]

I just switched to mambaforge and it worked fine to create a CadQuery environment, and import cadquery worked as well. I'm on Linux though (Ubuntu 20.04).

[jmwright]

I am also unable to reproduce #990 on Windows 11 64-bit with mambaforge. I'm ok with using mambaforge, but again, don't have a lot of experience with it. I have switch my systems over to it and will be using it as my primary way to handle my CadQuery environments moving forward.

[adam-urbanczyk]

I am also unable to reproduce #990 on Windows 11 64-bit with mambaforge. I'm ok with using mambaforge, but again, don't have a lot of experience with it. I have switch my systems over to it and will be using it as my primary way to handle my CadQuery environments moving forward.

OK, so I'd propose to stay with conda for now. The only known issue is the memory usage, I think that it is acceptable.

[fedorkotov]

For me a workaround for #990 on Windows 8.1 was adding -c conda-forge to installation or environment creation command. No one seems to be able to reproduce it on more modern operating systems (Windows or Linux). Besides Windows 8.1 has only one more year of life left before end of extended support from M$. So this is not really an issue anymore.

[adam-urbanczyk]

Alright merging with conda/miniforge, in the future we'll probably change it to mamba/mambaforge.