Thank you for such a thorough explanation old-polack. I can see a step that I missed on the CD drive and can't wait to try this again with your tute.
It would be nice to pull out these directions and make it a sticky with the right heading. Very helpful 
Actually, I've done that several times, and the posts are archived here. The problem is that with each new version of VBox improvements are made and the instructions then vary in detail from those previously posted. When Oracle acquired VBox the separate Extension Pack was added, and the previous method of just installing the guest additions from the d/l .iso image ceased to work properly. The Extension Pack just contained the USB functions when it first appeared.
People were having problems with the previously posted instructions, so
pinoc came up with the
getvirtualbox script that downloaded the
latest version of VB along with the
appropriate Extension Pack, then ran the installation process itself to become a
self contained acquire and install application.
I'm currently running the
64 bit testing version of PCLinuxOS, and
getvirtualbox for the 64 bit version has not yet been added to the 64 bit packages, so to install VBox I had to do all the steps manually. I've done that before, so basically followed the last instructions I posted up to the point of selection
Devices --> Install Guest Additions...With this
newest version of VBox I saw the
Auto-Run Confirmation window in a
Linux guest VM for the first time, and selecting
Allow Auto-Run saved manually opening a terminal, navigating to the virtual CD mount point, then manually typing the proper run command for the Linux Guest Additions installation app. The process is now as
automated for a
Linux guest as it's
always been for a
Windows guest. That's a
nice improvement, but changes the
installation instructions once again.
