Minnisstjórnun

Minnisstjórnun refers to the management of memory within a computer system. This encompasses various techniques and strategies employed by the operating system and hardware to allocate, deallocate, and organize memory for running programs and data. The primary goal of minnisstjórnun is to ensure efficient use of available memory, prevent conflicts between different processes, and maintain system stability.

Key aspects of minnisstjórnun include memory allocation, where the system assigns blocks of memory to processes as they request it. This can involve various algorithms such as first-fit, best-fit, or worst-fit. Conversely, memory deallocation is the process of reclaiming memory that is no longer in use by a process, making it available for other applications.

Another important concept is memory protection, which prevents one process from accessing or corrupting the memory space of another process or the operating system itself. This is crucial for system security and reliability. Virtual memory is a widely used technique that allows programs to use more memory than is physically available by using disk space as an extension of RAM. This involves paging or segmentation, where memory is divided into smaller units and swapped between main memory and secondary storage as needed. Effective minnisstjórnun is vital for overall system performance, as inefficient memory management can lead to slow execution, crashes, and system instability.