Ubuntu on VirtualBox

In case you're wondering why your Ubuntu installation gets stuck while you're trying to actually install it from the disk that you mounted, it's probably because you have checked the download updates installation in the beginning. Try starting over with that option unchecked to get the downloads out of your way, you can have ubuntu do that separately later when you're sleeping with your headphones on or something (like I do). If that doesn't work, use the try ubuntu option to run it from the cd-rom without installing it and then install it by double clicking the install icon on the desktop. This worked for me on both - mac and windows!

On a personal note, VmWare in my experience, is much more feature rich as compared to Oracle's VirtualBox (and I swear there's nothing more painful than calling it Oracle's VirtualBox instead of Sun's VirtualBox... but I'll get over it someday), but seriously...who buys a software these days? Also, there's a developer kit for VirtualBox... so someday you happen to crave for some opensource development, you can dive into that and I guess it's worth getting used to it now rather than later.