There are multiple versions of python available on the HPC systems. There is the system version /usr/bin/python. This is an older version of python (v2.7), it does not have any additional python packages installed with it and it does not use any high performance libraries. If you are doing a large amount of data processing or scientific computing, we recommend that you use the Anaconda distribution of Python.
There are two versions of pythons installed on the HPC systems that we recommend if you want a standard Anaconda environment and do not need to install any other Python packages. The modules are called python/anaconda3 and python/anaconda2 and you can load by typing the command module load anaconda3 or module load anaconda2.
If you need to install additional Python packages that are not part of the base Anaconda python environment, please create your own conda environment as described here: http://dartgo.org/conda-python
Please contact Research Computing if you need help installing your own conda environment.