Re: installing .debs in $HOME
On 2009-06-23 03:18 +0200, jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
> Wouldn't it be neat if users without root privileges could just
> install packages anyway on their account.
They can extract them using "dpkg-deb -x", but the maintainer scripts
will not be run then. There is no guarantee that these scripts would
succeed anyway, because they generally need root privileges and might
not find the package's files in the changed location.
> Maybe they could make an entire file tree, (including
> /home/nurdsome/home/nurdsome/ ?).
>
> The problem I'm trying to solve is e.g., Dreamhost, where there are 1000
> debs installed, but root is not willing to install packages just for one
> user's request. So perhaps there could be a way for the user to "install
> the debs himself, on his own account", just like he can already "compile
> the software himself and install it in $HOME/bin" -- but instead use the
> same .deb that root would.
Try "dpkg-deb -x foobar.deb $HOME/whatever" and run
$HOME/whatever/usr/bin/foobar. If it works, fine. If not, the program
might expect its data files under /usr/{share,lib}/foobar. If this
cannot be changed through, e.g., environment variables, you are out of
luck and may have to compile from source, if that is even possible with
the development packages the sysadmin installed.
Sven
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