User installation

Requirements

Conda

The supported way to install Finesse is by installing it in a conda environment. You will need conda or a similar software (e.g. mamba) to manage the conda environment(s).

How to install conda with Miniforge

To install conda, we recommend using Miniforge, which is a minimal conda distribution that is configured to use conda-forge as the default channel, the channel where Finesse is published. mamba is also installed with miniforge.

  1. Follow the instructions on download miniforge or use the following command to download and execute the installer:

    curl -L -O "https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest/download/Miniforge3-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh"
bash Miniforge3-$(uname)-$(uname -m).sh

  2. Follow the instructions in the installer: - Accept the license by typing yes and press enter. - Press enter to accept the default installation location. - Type yes and press enter to initialize miniforge.

  3. Close and reopen a terminal to start using conda.

  1. Download the Miniforge Windows installer

  2. Run the installer and follow the instructions (default options are ok).

  3. To open a prompt with conda available, search for Miniforge prompt in the start menu.

For more information about installing miniforge, see the miniforge install.

Installation procedure

To create a new conda environment named finesse3-env with Finesse and JupyterLab installed, execute in a terminal

conda create --name finesse3-env finesse

If you didn’t install conda via Miniforge, you may need to add the --channel conda-forge option to the command above.

After the installation is complete, you can activate the environment with:

conda activate finesse3-env

You now have a working Finesse installation. See How to write and run Finesse code for some useful tools and methods to run Finesse code.

A good starting point to learn Finesse are the notebooks from the Finesse 3: Getting started repository, or the Getting started section of this documentation. For more info on how to manage conda environments see Conda environment primer.