[Linux-disciples] Installing a Debian package without root access

[Stephen R Laniel]

I have a simple desire right now: I want to install realpath
on a remote machine to which I don't have root access.
Suppose for the moment that it's not as easy as just copying
the single file /usr/bin/realpath to the remote machine.
Imagine that I were copying a more complicated package over
-- something like Firefox. I want to create the entire
Debian tree -- whatever is necessary to run Firefox -- under
~/bin. How would I do this?

I was hoping that I could do some cleverness like

chroot ~/bin dpkg -i foo.deb

but no such luck:

(21:01) webmaster at foo:/home/webmaster/bin$ /usr/sbin/chroot ~/bin dpkg -i ~/realpath_1.9.23_i386.deb
/usr/sbin/chroot: cannot change root directory to /home/webmaster//bin: Operation not permitted

So: any idea how to do what I want to do? I figure that at
some level it should be easy. Why should I be able to become
the master of my own little subdomain within another site?

-- 
Stephen R. Laniel
steve at laniels.org
+(617) 308-5571
http://laniels.org/
PGP key: http://laniels.org/slaniel.key
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