Os Memory Management Questions Medium
The purpose of a free list in memory management is to keep track of the available memory blocks or segments in the system. It serves as a data structure that maintains a list of all the free memory blocks, indicating their starting addresses and sizes.
When a process requests memory allocation, the free list is consulted to find a suitable block of memory that can fulfill the requested size. The free list helps in efficient memory allocation by reducing fragmentation and ensuring that memory is allocated in a contiguous manner whenever possible.
Additionally, the free list is updated whenever memory is deallocated or freed by a process. This ensures that the freed memory blocks are added back to the list, making them available for future memory allocation requests.
Overall, the free list plays a crucial role in managing and organizing the available memory in an operating system, allowing for efficient memory allocation and utilization.