Can I update to Python 3.9 or 3.10 in Anaconda base (root)?

Question

Is there any way to update the current conda base (root) environment, which has Python 3.8.11 currently to Python 3.9 or 3.10? I know using a new virtual environment is the recommended way to go, but I still want to learn how to do it.

I tried using conda install python=3.9 and conda install python=3.10, which is recommended by a few posts a few years ago, but they didn't work and I ended up with the following error

Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): done
Solving environment: failed with initial frozen solve. Retrying with flexible solve.
Solving environment: failed with repodata from current_repodata.json, will retry with next repodata source.
Collecting package metadata (repodata.json): done
Solving environment: failed with initial frozen solve. Retrying with flexible solve.
Solving environment: -
Found conflicts! Looking for incompatible packages.
This can take several minutes.  Press CTRL-C to abort.
failed

Also, using conda update python only changed the micro version number (I think it upgraded from Python 3.8.10 to 3.8.11)

Answer 1

According to your error message you can't upgrade conda base to python 3.10 since this would lead to incompatibilities. (Supposedly there are some issues with the numpy package.) So you'll have to wait for the next Anaconda release.

However, the whole point of conda is using virtual environments:

conda create --name py10 python=3.10 

This allows you to install Python 3.10 right away.

Answer 2

Just do

conda update python and you should be fine. If you want specifically 3.10, you can do conda install python="3.10".

This will update your current environment version