diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 4cc60c87e3e1052e71003e5b3a63c5a44faeba47..b7785ecf5f8ded1c25ad067cdb1211eeee1b265a 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ tests (from scratch):
   script:
     - zypper --non-interactive install binutils libproj-devel gdal-devel
     - zypper --non-interactive install proj geos-devel
-    - cat requirements.txt | xargs -L 1 pip install
+    - cat requirements.txt | cut -f1 -d"#" | sed '/^\s*$/d' | xargs -L 1 pip install
     - chmod +x ./CI/run_pytest.sh
     - ./CI/run_pytest.sh
   after_script:
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ tests (on GPU):
     - chmod +x ./CI/update_badge.sh
     - ./CI/update_badge.sh > /dev/null
   script:
-    - cat requirements_gpu.txt | xargs -L 1 pip install
+    - cat requirements.txt | cut -f1 -d"#" | sed '/^\s*$/d' | xargs -L 1 pip install
     - chmod +x ./CI/run_pytest.sh
     - ./CI/run_pytest.sh
   after_script:
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ tests:
     - chmod +x ./CI/update_badge.sh
     - ./CI/update_badge.sh > /dev/null
   script:
-    - cat requirements.txt | xargs -L 1 pip install
+    - cat requirements.txt | cut -f1 -d"#" | sed '/^\s*$/d' | xargs -L 1 pip install
     - chmod +x ./CI/run_pytest.sh
     - ./CI/run_pytest.sh
   after_script:
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ coverage:
     - chmod +x ./CI/update_badge.sh
     - ./CI/update_badge.sh > /dev/null
   script:
-    - cat requirements.txt | xargs -L 1 pip install
+    - cat requirements.txt | cut -f1 -d"#" | sed '/^\s*$/d' | xargs -L 1 pip install
     - chmod +x ./CI/run_pytest_coverage.sh
     - ./CI/run_pytest_coverage.sh
   after_script:
@@ -142,8 +142,8 @@ sphinx docs:
     - chmod +x ./CI/update_badge.sh
     - ./CI/update_badge.sh > /dev/null
   script:
-    - cat requirements.txt | xargs -L 1 pip install
-    - cat docs/requirements_docs.txt | xargs -L 1 pip install
+    - cat requirements.txt | cut -f1 -d"#" | sed '/^\s*$/d' | xargs -L 1 pip install
+    - cat docs/requirements_docs.txt | cut -f1 -d"#" | sed '/^\s*$/d' | xargs -L 1 pip install
     - chmod +x ./CI/create_documentation.sh
     - ./CI/create_documentation.sh
   after_script:
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 636e673aaaf589e2a4193c7731f43fd305b8a8a3..40954c7896811f364ae1efd4d0065aa6cad215f1 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -24,7 +24,8 @@ HPC systems, see [here](#special-instructions-for-installation-on-jülich-hpc-sy
   preferably in a virtual environment. You can use `pip install -r requirements.txt` to install all requirements at 
   once. Note, we recently updated the version of Cartopy and there seems to be an ongoing 
   [issue](https://github.com/SciTools/cartopy/issues/1552) when installing numpy and Cartopy at the same time. If you
-  run into trouble, you could use ` cat requirements.txt | xargs -L 1 pip install` instead.
+  run into trouble, you could use `cat requirements.txt | cut -f1 -d"#" | sed '/^\s*$/d' | xargs -L 1 pip install` 
+  instead.
 * Installation of **MLAir**:
     * Either clone MLAir from the [gitlab repository](https://gitlab.version.fz-juelich.de/toar/mlair.git) 
       and use it without installation (beside the requirements)