If your goal is to try out emacs on that system by working on files that you have inside it, you could install emacs on something else and then use the built-in

If your goal is to try out emacs on that system by working on files that you have inside it, you could install emacs on something else and then use the built-in TRAMP functionality to work on that system remotely, as if it was local. It works transparently over SSH. Might be an easy way to do it without changing too much on your restricted linux box.