Running RASA on Apple M1 Pro

Rasa Open Source
1

I have been seeing various questions historically asked for issues related to running RASA on Apple M1 Pro.
So what does this mean? If I have a Apple M1 Pro, I will never be able to try RASA. It looks like even docker container support is not there.

Can some one help me are there any work arounds for us ?

2

I’m running 3.5.5 on an M1

3

Running RASA on Apple M1 Pro is indeed possible, despite some initial challenges. While there have been compatibility issues with running RASA and its dependencies on Apple Silicon architecture, there have been significant improvements in recent months to address this.

As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, Docker containers using the official RASA images were not compatible with Apple Silicon. However, this situation might have changed since then, and it’s advisable to check for any updates or changes in the RASA community.

One potential workaround is to set up a virtual environment on your M1 Pro and manually install the necessary dependencies to run RASA. Here are the general steps you can follow:

Install Homebrew: Homebrew is a package manager for macOS, and it supports Apple Silicon. Follow the instructions at https://brew.sh/ to install Homebrew on your M1 Pro.

Install Python: Use Homebrew to install the latest version of Python compatible with Apple Silicon. Open Terminal and run the following command: brew install python Create a virtual environment: After installing Python, create a virtual environment for your RASA project. Open Terminal, navigate to your project directory, and run the following commands: python3 -m venv rasa-venv source rasa-venv/bin/activate Install dependencies: Within your virtual environment, you can now install the required dependencies for RASA. Run the following commands: pip install -U pip pip install rasa Use RASA: You can now use RASA within your virtual environment as you would on any other platform. Activate the virtual environment whenever you want to work with RASA by running the command: source rasa-venv/bin/activate I hope this information helps you.