Operating Systems, unit: Memory Management. Core concepts, terminology, and worked-example cues a college student meets for this unit, building on prior units without repeating them. Front: a term, concept, or short problem cue. Back: the definition, explanation, or answer.
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- What is memory management?
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The OS function responsible for allocating and tracking a computer's main memory (RAM)- What is a logical (virtual) address?
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An address generated by the CPU during program execution, translated before accessing physical memory- What is a physical address?
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The actual address in the computer's physical RAM hardware- What is address binding?
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The process of mapping logical addresses to physical memory addresses- What is contiguous memory allocation?
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Assigning each process a single contiguous block of memory- What is fixed (static) partitioning?
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Dividing memory into fixed-size partitions, each holding one process- What is dynamic partitioning?
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Allocating memory partitions of varying sizes as needed by each process- What is external fragmentation?
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Wasted memory in small, scattered free blocks too small to be useful individually- What is internal fragmentation?
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Wasted memory within an allocated block that is larger than what the process actually needs- What is paging?
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A memory management scheme that divides memory into fixed-size blocks called pages and frames- What is a page, in paging?
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A fixed-size block of a process's logical memory- What is a frame, in paging?
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A fixed-size block of physical memory that holds a page- What is a page table?
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A data structure mapping a process's pages to physical memory frames- What is segmentation?
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A memory management scheme that divides a program into variable-size logical segments, like code and data- What is the main advantage of paging over contiguous allocation?
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It eliminates external fragmentation by allowing non-contiguous physical memory allocation
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