virtualbox stuff

Version 4.x changes the game somewhat from version 3.x.

To enable USBs, you'd need to download a separate file called extensions pack. USB is NOT included in the vbox additions, as in earlier versions.
Download the extensions pack using your host browser, not the guest VM.

Then shut down your VM (if it's running), and install it under File-Preferences-Extensions.

Then, THEN, make sure your Linux user id belongs to the group vboxusers. System-Administration-Users and Groups, under Ubuntu's main menu.

Only then did my USB drive work inside the guest machine.

---

Import/Export appliance - it works. I exported from v3.1 (still under the Sun logo), to v4.0.2 (Oracle logo). Different machines. Installed ssh-server on the destination laptop, installed filezilla on the source laptop, did the export locally, then did a sftp to copy the 3 virtualbox files, then on the destination laptop, did the import.

The 3 files generated during export were:
1. *.mf
2. *.ovf
3. *.vmdk (the virtual hard disk)