Although the KVM solution discussed here may work, the description of 
this in operation appears to be a true
hypervisor even when only used to run, say, MS Windows as an application 
environment virtual machine under SL.  That is, this solution is not the 
same "in spirit" as is VirtualBox.  On a hard 802.3 wired connection, 
VirtualBox does provide Internet access to the outside world from the 
guest; this seems to be a failure on a 802.11 ISP wifi connection.  JHas 
anyone used VMware-Player-12.0.0-2985596.x86_64.bundle on a SL7 host 
with a MS Win guest?

If so, is the "free" version stripped of sufficient features as not to 
be useful in a "production" environment?  I do not need merely to look 
at pretty pictures of a running guest environment; I need to access the 
Internet. to share files (e.g., docx, pptx, etc.) between the Linux host 
and the MS Windows guest, and to access both USB devices and the DVD 
drive of the host on the guest.

My institution cannot afford the US$249 for the VMware Workstation 
license, and I cannot justify the expenditure of research funds. 
However, VMware player is licensed for free for non-commercial private 
use (mine).

I do note that my query on the failure of VirtualBox to work with 802.11 
host Linux networks and thus supply a connection to the guest OS within 
VirtualBox now has had 46 views on the VirtualBox Linux host "forum" 
without a reply -- evidently, this is a problem with the current 
VirtualBox for which no one has a viable solution -- hence my interest 
in VMware Player.

Yasha Karant