Intel Environments on M1/M2

If you have an Macbook with the m1 or m2 chips, you might have found out some python libraries don’t work.

A work around, is via a conda environment with an intel architecture!

Example: Ambertools on m2 Macbook

1. Create a new conda environment and activate the environment

CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64 conda create -n ambertools python=3.10
conda activate ambertools

2. Check the environment architecture with python

python -c "import platform;print(platform.machine()) "

3. Change the architecture

conda env config vars set CONDA_SUBDIR=osx-64

4. Follow the instructions onscreen! Deactivate environment to set new configuration, then re-activate environment.

conda deactivate
conda activate ambertools

5. Now you can install Ambertools!

conda install -c conda-forge ambertools