"Local" apt-get?

[<kynn@panix.com>]

Is there any way to coax apt-get to install packages in $HOME?

The situation is this: requests for package installs for the system I
use at work sometime take weeks.  Plus about half of the packages I
want installed I will decide not to use any more after I try them out,
so I feel bad about pestering our overworked sysadmin about them.

What I have done in the past is to download the *.deb files for the
desired package and its dependencies, and do a "manual" install on
$HOME, but this can be really tedious for packages that have a lot of
dependencies.

I suppose one solution may be to turn $HOME into a self-contained
Debian (Knoppix?) system, and chroot $HOME, but this would entail *a
lot* of duplicated software.

Is there a better approach?

Thanks!

kj