What is the Importance of memory management in operating systems?

Answer 1

One of the most important tasks that an operating system does is manage the memory requirements of your computer. We discussed earlier how current day operating systems are Multi User. This means that many users will be using the facilities of the computer at the same time, including its memory, to run their own tasks. Imagine if you had ten people sitting and working around your desk, and each of those people put their paperwork all over the desk. The desk would soon become unmanageable, with the paperwork hard to find or even lost. Eventually all ten people would probably not be able to complete their tasks. Somebody needs to take control and organise the chaos - on a computer this is one of the jobs of the operating system. As an example consider the process of using your word processor on your computer. On your computer, you double-click an icon on your desktop to 'load' the program. This double-click sends a signal to the operating system that you want to use this particular program. The operating system then makes a request to the CPU to retrieve a copy of the program from the computer disk. The CPU and operating system then find where on the disk this program resides and starts to copy the program code from the disk into the computer's memory*. One of the most important tasks that an operating system does is manage the memory requirements of your computer. We discussed earlier how current day operating systems are Multi User. This means that many users will be using the facilities of the computer at the same time, including its memory, to run their own tasks. Imagine if you had ten people sitting and working around your desk, and each of those people put their paperwork all over the desk. The desk would soon become unmanageable, with the paperwork hard to find or even lost. Eventually all ten people would probably not be able to complete their tasks. Somebody needs to take control and organise the chaos - on a computer this is one of the jobs of the operating system. As an example consider the process of using your word processor on your computer. On your computer, you double-click an icon on your desktop to 'load' the program. This double-click sends a signal to the operating system that you want to use this particular program. The operating system then makes a request to the CPU to retrieve a copy of the program from the computer disk. The CPU and operating system then find where on the disk this program resides and starts to copy the program code from the disk into the computer's memory*.