Memory Management in Linux & Windows

2679 Words6 Pages

• Introduction to Memory Management

• Comparison of Windows NT & Linux:

• Conclusion

Diarmuid Ryan (11363776)

• Windows Memory Management System

Songjun Lin (12251990)

• Linux Memory Management System

Contents:

Introduction (Maria)

Windows Version (Diarmuid)

History

Paging

Virtual Memory/Address Space

Page Swap

File Mapping

Linux Version (Songjun Lin)

History

Structure of Memory Management

Virtual Memory/Address Space Paging

Page Swap

BitMap/Table

Comparison (Maria)

Conclusion (Maria)

Bibliography (Maria)

Introduction to Memory Management in Linux & Windows:

Memory management is important in all operating systems, the speed at which the processes can be run is affected by their location, whether it is currently stored in memory or on disk, the location in turn affects the speed, as processes which are located in memory do not require additional time to be loaded in from disk. Memory Management is also important for efficient use of the memory, to have as little fragmentation or unusable space as possible. The location of data and how it is stored and retrieved are all part if memory management. The methods by which memory is managed is not standard across operating systems. To investigate the differences between memory management in different systems these key areas must be looked at.

Paging is when the memory is partitioned into relatively small pieces of a fixed size and processes are broken up into chunks the same size as these partitions, they are known as pages. Page frames are sections of memory to which pages can be assigned.

Page Tables allow pages to be stored non-contiguously in memory, each page has an associated page table with a logical ...

... middle of paper ...

...writes to it’s own new version.

Conclusion:

There are many small differences between the two operating systems and on the surface of it is impossible to tell which system is better it appears to be more a preference. This seems it will always be the case while the optimal solutions are still theoretical or impossible to implement. This is also because there are many small other factors which contribute to how efficient either of these can be and they are completely unpredictable. The methods used by the two system try to ensure efficient memory management for these unknown variables,however with these unknow things like optimum page size can not be determined and systems can only try to predict what process page is least likely to be needed in the future there is no absolute way to gain this information as over time the requirements are constantly changing.

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