CST 334 - Week 4

Hey everyone! 

    This week, I learned about how operating systems manage memory, which is one of their most important jobs. One topic was free space management, where the system keeps track of memory or storage that isn’t being used. Two common methods are bitmaps (using bits to mark if memory is free or taken) and linked lists (connecting free memory blocks together). Each method has its pros and cons, like how much space they use or how fast they work.

    I also studied paging, which splits memory into small chunks called pages. These pages are mapped to physical memory, keeping processes separate and organized. However, this mapping can slow things down because the computer has to translate addresses often. To make it faster, Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs) store recent translations in a small, quick cache. I also learned about advanced page tables, which are smarter ways of organizing these mappings to save memory.

    Another big topic was swapping, where parts of a program are moved between memory and disk to make room for other programs. The system uses policies like Least Recently Used (LRU) or First-In, First-Out (FIFO) to decide which parts to move. These techniques are all part of virtual memory, which creates the illusion that every program has more memory than the computer actually has. This week helped me understand how operating systems handle memory so that computers can run many programs smoothly. Looking forward to next week!

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