Initially, I developed using Manjaro Linux’s standard Python installation, which is managed by the package manager and kept up to date. For Windows 10, I first ran tests in the environment bundled with osgeo4w.
I encountered limitations with this setup in several areas. During the development of SplashTool_GPU on Manjaro Linux, it was challenging to maintain compatibility between the Nvidia driver, Nvidia Toolkit, Python installation with Spyder as IDE, and cupy. Frequently, the package manager updated the driver and toolkit, but cupy didn’t have a straightforward update path. On Windows, osgeo4w‘s Python environment management was similarly restricted.
As a result, I switched to Miniconda for development on both Linux and Windows, enjoying better package control and a more consistent development environment.