Conda forge install¶

To keep your conda setup tidy, we recommend that you install NEST into a separate conda environment together with Python packages that you will use when working with NEST; see also our Tips for installing NEST with conda.

To install the latest version of NEST in a new environment called ENVNAME, just run
```
conda create --name ENVNAME -c conda-forge nest-simulator
```
To install additional packages into the environment, just list them together with nest-simulator.
```
conda create --name ENVNAME -c conda-forge nest-simulator jupyterlab seaborn
```
To see all NEST versions available via conda, either run
```
conda search -c conda-forge nest-simulator
```
or browse the conda forge file list (note there are multiple pages). To install, e.g., NEST 2.18.0, run
```
conda create --name nest_2_18_0 -c conda-forge nest-simulator=2.18.0=*
```
The syntax for this install follows the pattern: nest-simulator=<version>=<build_string>.
Activate your environment:
```
conda activate ENVNAME
```
Note the following:
- We currently provide NEST with thread-based parallelization on conda. This should suffice for most uses on personal computers.
- Until dedicated conda builds for Apple’s M1 chip (arm64) become available, you should expect relatively poor performance on computers with the M1 chip. You need to build NEST yourself on M1 systems for good performance.