Yes, Anaconda is completely self-contained (you can actually install it anywhere you like, for example, your home directory) and does not interfere with the res

Yes, Anaconda is completely self-contained (you can actually install it anywhere you like, for example, your home directory) and does not interfere with the rest of your system at all. You can also run virtualenv from Anaconda too, if you want to have isolated Anaconda environments without installing it multiple times (which you could also do, if you wanted..) I like using it to make sure I have a very easy to install consistent environment between the various computers I use (including EC2 instances).