pytest-xdist not found by conda

[linebp]

Code Sample

$ conda create -n pandas_dev python=3 --file ci/requirements_dev.txt
Fetching package metadata .........




PackageNotFoundError: Package not found: '' Package missing in current linux-64 channels: 
  - pytest-xdist


You can search for packages on anaconda.org with


    anaconda search -t conda pytest-xdist

Problem description

When following the documentation on how to contribute to the code, I ran into the above problem. pytest-xdist is not to be found in the standard conda channels, you need to add the conda-forge channel. The documentation does not help you with this. See also this discussion.

This can be resolved by either adding a note explaining the need to add conda-forge channel to conda or simply removing pytest-xdist as a requirement for a dev environment.

[jorisvandenbossche]

I would remove pytest-xdist from the requirements file (one thing less to explain to new contributors. It is explained in the section on testing how to install it).
Would you want to do a PR for that?

[linebp]

yes, I can try that.