Will OS provide virtual address space?

1
votes

This is an interview question. I am writing all the details the interviewer gave me. The question is:-

A system has a memory of 1GB. A process requires only 1MB of memory. Assuming no other processes are running in memory, will the OS provide virtual address translation for this process or give the entire 1MB of physical space ?

1
operating-systemvirtual-memory
depends on the os, depends on the cpu, blah blah blah. e.g. anything running in x86 protected mode has a virtual address space already anyways. - Marc B

1 Answers

2
votes

Assuming this is a virtual memory system and at the risk of gross oversimplification:

  1. Such system would use address translation for any processes, even if only one is running.

  2. Such a system is unlikely to provide the 1MB of memory until the process accesses that much memory. That is, the system will only allocate physical pages on demand.