Install userspace programs on server without root access

I would like to install some programs on my work development server because it is missing some programs I need for my day to day job. I don't have root access. What I did up to now is compiling the software I needs with option --prefix=/path/to/local/root. I then created a script that looks like that: #!/bin/sh export LOCAL_PATH="/path/to/local/root" export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$LOCAL_PATH/lib:$LOCAL_PATH/lib64:$LOCAL_PATH/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" binary=$(basename $0) $LOCAL_PATH/bin/$binary "$@" Then, if I create symlink to this program with the right name, it will run the local version. However, I have some issues: - The install folder might move from time to time. It happened recently and I had to reinstall everything - Some programs use libtool, which ignores the LD_LIBRARY_PATH when it finds a library in /usr/lib (which in my case was outdated) - The programs are hard to maintain or update For the first two problems, it seems that creating a chroot would solve the problem. Would fakechroot help in that case ? Will my script still work ? Also, the last issue makes me think about switching to a package manager. I was thinking about portage (from Gentoo, which I use at home), but maybe there are some more suited for my needs. Any suggestion? Maybe a lightweight Linux distribution ? Finally, do I need to symlink /local/lib and /local/lib64 together ?