Mark
Setting up a python environment is probably the easiest of any language. Take a look at
anaconda it takes hardly any time to set up. Anaconda comes standard with a lot of scientific modules including Jupyter Notebook (ipython).
The jupyter notebook is the easiest and simplest way to explore python.
Anaconda has scikit, numpy , pandas, matplotlib , qt etc modules by default.
If you don’t need GPU/Cuda/CudaNN then installing vanilla Tensorflow is very simple just follow the instructions on
tensorflow.org
An alternative IDE which I would recommend is
pycharm there is a community edition. python install comes with a default IDE called IDLE.
I have seen some containers on offer in the past, but can’t find those links now. But I seem to remember they had tf install of python.
Hope this helps
rgds
mark