A premise: sorry for the banality of questions but I have no idea where to start

I already wrote programs using C but I've never used (seriously) linux.
I place a preorder for an RPI and, just to not waste time I start with RPI virtualbox emulator from nick's post http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... f=9&t=2961
All work fine. Thanks to nick's work I have the qemu-rpi working

Now, I need to know:
1] does rpi machine has the capability to execute python scripts? Python seems to be not installed.
2] how I could transfer file from host to qemu fs ?
3] what about developing and debugging C program for RPI simulator ?
4] is there a way to check/simulate behaviour of GPIOs (something like "led bitmap")?
THANKS to all !
Regards