9. Basics of Virtual Memory and Address Translation
Virtual memory is a technique that allows multiple processes to concurrently reside in main memory, providing the illusion of a large addressable space even with limited physical memory. It enables efficient management by mapping virtual addresses to physical addresses, enforcing protection between programs and the kernel. This translation process supports operations like page sharing and eliminates the need for contiguous memory allocation, thus simplifying the memory management processes.
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What we have learnt
- Virtual memory provides a larger addressable space compared to physical memory.
- The mapping of virtual addresses to physical addresses is essential for process management and protection.
- Efficiency in memory use is enhanced through techniques such as page sharing and dynamic loading.
Key Concepts
- -- Virtual Memory
- A memory management technique that allows the execution of processes that may not completely fit into physical memory by using secondary storage as an extension.
- -- Page Fault
- An event that occurs when a program tries to access a page that is not currently in physical memory, requiring it to be loaded from secondary storage.
- -- Memory Management Unit (MMU)
- Hardware component responsible for translating virtual addresses to physical addresses.
- -- Working Set
- The set of pages in memory that a process is currently using, which allows efficient memory use without loading the entire process into main memory.
- -- Shared Libraries
- Code libraries that can be loaded into memory once and accessed by multiple programs, reducing memory redundancy.
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