Install packages without root permissions

Would it be possible to install packages without admin rights(sudo?) on Ubuntu?

It doesn't have to be system-wide, maybe a private installation within /home.

I want this because I'd like to setup my PC so that you can do anything you need without ever having to enter the escalate your privileges. This way, I can blissfully allow anyone to use my Ubuntu system (on their own account of course) and simply telling them that whenever they are told to authenticate, DONT.

Currently, I can run Banshee, chromium, LO, save data on /home,manage my music library etc without authentication.

However, I cannot install say, VLC or CHM reader without privileges.

I understand that there are some packages that touch the inner workings of my system(e.g linux-kernel-image) where it won't make sense to have a private "/home" installation. And that packages are not neatly labeled "trivial" & "non-trivial".

Nonetheless I would like the system(synaptic?) to try and install without any rights until it cannot proceed, upon which it displays the traditional "You require authentication"

Solution 1:

You should manually unpack the deb, place files somewhere and ensure it has access to the libs it need. Chroot command may help to use dpkg or apt-get, though I don't think many people did it. If you want to make a machine, where you don't need root passwd at all, you should use sudo extensively. Sudo can be tuned to allow only given commands with given parameters passwordless.