Just curious, Does the Free VMWare Player can run Linux?
Absolutely! That's what I'm using, and it works like a dream. The easiest way to do it is to create an empty virtual machine at
EasyVMX.com, put the Linux install CD in your CD drive, and load the vmx file in VMWare Player. It should boot from the CD automatically, and you can install your distro and be ready to go.
I'm using a virtual drive size of 4.7GB and memory size of 320MB. More than enough disk space for a basic Ubuntu installation (3.66 GB used so far), and so far enough memory so there's no major thrashing. It's not quite as snappy as a non-emulated installation
with hardware-accelerated graphics, but I can't tell the difference between it and a non-emulated installation
without hardware-accelerated graphics (i.e. using the basic XGA driver). It's perfectly usable. (My actual PC is an Athlon 64 3500+@2.2Ghz, 768MB DDR 400.)