Judd,
I have extracted the files under windows and copied them to the unix folder.
I did not try xorg yet.
/software is just a directory.

Here's the output of the commands you sent me (another problem I have is host<>guest copy/paste...so I'm typing here...):

uname -a:
Linux Vector .Linux.virtualboximages 2.6.27.12 #1 SMP PREEMPT THU JAN 22 00:12:35 MST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P9600 @ 2.53GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

mount:
/dev/hda2 on / type reiserfs (rq,noatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm/ type usbfs (rw, devmode=0666)
D_DRIVE on /home/adminuser/Dshare type vboxsf (uid=1000,gid=1000,rw)
C_DRIVE on /home/adminuser/Cshare type vboxsf (uid=1000,gid=1000,rw)

(C_DRIVE and D_DRIVE are shared folders I configured between windows and linux)

ls -l /software/afni/afni:
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9138336 2009-11-23 14:20 /software/afni/afni*

file /software/afni/afni:
/software/afni/afni: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1
(SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped

file /bin/bash:
/bin/bash: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1
(SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

Hope this means something to you...
Much thanks from this unix noob