I just came upon an article in lxer.com on installing VMware Player in Debian, so in this case Linux is host and whatever OS you want to run in it would be guest. Instructions are pretty straightforward; get the article here (https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-vmware-workstation-player-on-debian-9/). The procedure would be the same for any distro based on Debian or Ubuntu.
Thanks for this, Fox. It's certainly a friendly step-to-step guide with lots of screenshots.