I am a non-admin user on a large computer system. I need some up to date packages that are not installed on the system. I want to use yum to install them. As a user without sudo, admin, or root access, can I use package management to install packages in my home directory? I can always use make from the sources, but being able to use yum will make life easier.
yum install in user home for non-admins
yum;rpm
Most binaries are compiled to be installed into certain locations under /.There are non-root package managers like Gentoo Prefix and Rootless GoboLinux and maybe 0install.As you said compiling yourself would alleviate that issue, or using a chroot.  However, your biggest hurdle with chrooting will be the prerequisites and linking to kernel shared objects.