Setup#

Brightway is a Python software package. It can be installed using the Python package installer pip or the multi-language package management system conda. This guide uses conda.

Note

Brightway supports Python 2 and 3 (>3.4). However, we recommend you use Python 3.

Quickstart#

Prerequisites

  1. a working installation of Conda

  2. basic knowledge of Conda environments

Note

Brightway runs natively on Unix (x64) systems, including Ubuntu and macOS.

  1. Create a new Conda environment (in this example named bw):

conda create -n bw -c cmutel brightway2 jupyterlab

  1. Activate the environment:

conda activate bw

Warning

You will need to activate this environment every time you start a new terminal or command line shell.

Note

Brightway runs natively on Windows (x64) systems, including Windows 7-11.

  1. Create a new Conda environment (in this example named bw):

conda create -n bw -c cmutel brightway2 jupyterlab

  1. Activate the environment:

conda activate bw

  1. Install pywin32:

conda install pywin32

Warning

You will need to activate this environment every time you start a new terminal or command line shell.

Note

Brightway run on the new M1 ARM architecture. However, the super-fast linear algebra software library pypardiso is not compatible with the M1 ARM architecture. To avoid critical errors during instruction that would break core functionality, a different version of Brightway (brightway_nosolver) must be installed, which includes a different linear algebra software library (scikit-umfpack).

  1. Create a new Conda environment (in this example named bw):

conda create -n bw -c cmutel -c conda-forge brightway2_nosolver jupyterlab scikit-umfpack

  1. Activate the environment:

conda activate bw

Warning

You will need to activate this environment every time you start a new terminal or command line shell.

Upgrading Brightway#

Brightway is being actively developed, with frequent new releases. To upgrade Brightway:

conda update conda
conda update -c conda-forge brightway