Memory Addressing(Understanding the Linux Kernel)

Linux prefers paging to segmentation for the following reasons:

• Memory management is simpler when all processes use the same segment register values that is, when they share the same set of linear addresses.

• One of the design objectives of Linux is portability to a wide range of architectures; RISC architectures in particular have limited support for segmentation.

The 2.6 version of Linux uses segmentation only when required by the 80 x 86 architecture.