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operating-systempagingvirtual-memorymemory-segmentation

Paging or segmentation for virtual memory, which is better?


Most OSes use paging for virtual memory. Why is this? Why not use segmentation? Is it just because of a hardware issue? Is one better than the other in certain cases? Basically, if you had to choose one over the other, which one would you want to use and why?

Let's assume it's an x86 for argument's sake.


Solution

  • Note, that Single-Address-Space Operating Systems sometimes use segmentation to isolate processes.