Using PEAR to install Drush

[technosophos]

I believe the preferred way to install Drush now is as follows:

pear channel-discover pear.drush.org
pear install drush/drush

Is PEAR available? Can this method be used?

[troytop]

PEAR is available, but there seem to be some permission problems using it. I assume this would work if you preface the commands with 'sudo' but that's disabled by default now in staging and application containers.

[technosophos]

Hmmm, yes, I tried several permutations of pear, and I can't find a combination that is both secure (not writing unknown data into the web root) and functional.

Is there another way to install PEAR and PECL extensions for PHP in Stackato?