Biglab has python3.4 installed, which is a little out of date, so if you want to use a more modern python, follow these steps. First, to get to biglab:
(where USERNAME is your Penn username)
You can either use an existing miniconda installation, or you can download your own.
For this, open up ~/.bashrc
and add this line to the end:
Restart your terminal (exit and ssh in again), and python should be version 3.6 from anaconda.
This is more involved, but may give you more freedom. Anaconda is a collection of scientific packages for python, and also a virtual environment manager. I suggest miniconda, which is a stripped down version. To install go here: https://conda.io/miniconda.html. Alternatively, run this:
Then restart your terminal (exit and ssh in again), and run this:
Since you will be running code remotely, we strongly recommend that you use some sort of session manager. I (Stephen) use screen, but other options are byobu, or tmux. These allow you to ssh to a remote machine, start a terminal session, disconnect from it, and reconnect at a later time. This is especially useful when you want to run long jobs. Here’s a sample screenrc file.