How to connect R conda env to jupyter notebook

Question

I am creating conda environment using following code

 conda create --prefix r_venv_conda r=3.3  r-essentials  r-base --y

Then I am activating t

Answer 1

Jupyter does not automatically recognize Conda environments, activated or not.

Kernel Module

First, for an environment to run as a kernel, it needs to have the appropriate kernel package installed. In this case, that is r-irkernel, so you need to run

conda install -n r_venv_conda r-irkernel

For Python kernels, it's ipykernel.

Kernel Registration

Second, kernels need to be registered with Jupyter. If you have Jupyter installed via Conda (say in an Anaconda base env), then I recommend using the nb_conda_kernels package, which enables auto-discovery of kernel-ready Conda-envs. This must be installed in the env that has jupyter installed (you only need one!), for example, if this is base, then

conda install -n base nb_conda_kernels

Please read the docs for details.

If you are using a system-level installation of Jupyter (i.e., not installed by Conda), then you need to manually register your kernel.

conda activate r_venv_conda
Rscript -e 'IRkernel::installspec(name="ir33", displayname="R 3.3")'

where you can set your own values for name and displayname. See IRkernel for details.

Running Jupyter

If using a Conda-installed Jupyter, again, it only needs to be installed in a single env. This is the env that should be activated before running jupyter notebook. Once running, then you select the kernel you wish to use.