How to conda install openAI gym on Linux - Package Conflicts

Question

I am trying to install the gym package in conda for Linux. I have created a virtual environment and am using the following command to try and install:

(gym_env) [user]$ conda install --name gym_env -c hcc gym

But am getting the following issue:

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.                                                                                                        failed

UnsatisfiableError: The following specifications were found to be incompatible with each other:



Package libgcc-ng conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> libgcc-ng[version='>=7.2.0|>=7.3.0']
Package libstdcxx-ng conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> libstdcxx-ng[version='>=7.2.0|>=7.3.0']
Package xz conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> xz[version='>=5.2.3,<6.0a0|>=5.2.4,<6.0a0']
Package libffi conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> libffi[version='3.2.*|>=3.2.1,<4.0a0']
Package sqlite conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> sqlite[version='>=3.20.1,<4.0a0|>=3.22.0,<4.0a0|>=3.23.1,<4.0a0|>=3.24.0,<4.0a0|>=3.25.2,<4.0a0|>=3.26.0,<4.0a0|>=3.29.0,<4.0a0']
Package requests conflicts for:
gym -> requests[version='>=2.0']
Package pyglet conflicts for:
gym -> pyglet[version='>=1.2.0']
Package tk conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> tk[version='8.6.*|>=8.6.7,<8.7.0a0|>=8.6.8,<8.7.0a0']
Package openssl conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> openssl[version='1.0.*|1.0.*,>=1.0.2l,<1.0.3a|>=1.0.2m,<1.0.3a|>=1.0.2n,<1.0.3a|>=1.0.2o,<1.0.3a|>=1.0.2p,<1.0.3a|>=1.1.1a,<1.1.2a|>=1.1.1c,<1.1.2a']
Package zlib conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> zlib[version='>=1.2.11,<1.3.0a0']
Package ncurses conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> ncurses[version='6.0.*|>=6.0,<7.0a0|>=6.1,<7.0a0']
Package numpy conflicts for:
gym -> numpy[version='>=1.10.4']
Package six conflicts for:
gym -> six
Package pip conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> pip
Package readline conflicts for:
python=3.6 -> readline[version='7.*|>=7.0,<8.0a0']
Package scipy conflicts for:
gym -> scipy

I am finding it difficult to interpret this error so am not sure where to go from here to try and fix it.

I also tried installing the package at the same time as creating the environemt but there was the same issue.

Python version - 3.6.9 conda version - 4.7.12

Hopefully someone can help me!

Answer 1

The error means that the package has dependency requirements that conflict with one another. Given that you've tried to install this into a fresh environment with nothing else installed, this is something that the package maintainer needs to fix, and there is not much else you can do.

Alternatively, you can try pip install gym to install the package. Check out their README on GitHub for more information. In case you're not aware, you can use Pip in a conda environment.

Answer 2

While the hcc channel hosts the gym package, it has a requirement of pyglet which is not available on hcc or defaults. Try also including the conda-forge channel as well:

conda create -n gym_env -c hcc -c conda-forge python=3.6 gym

Note, that when creating an env for a specialized purpose, it is generally recommended to include the key packages at creation.