At the heart of your Android smartphone sits the Linux kernel, a modern multitasking operating system. Its job is to manage the computing resources on your phone, including the CPU, the GPU, the display, the storage, the networking, and so on. It is also responsible for the Random Access Memory (RAM). The apps, the background services, and even Android itself all need access to the RAM. How Linux partitions that memory and allocates it is vital to your smartphone running smoothly. This is where virtual memory comes in.
What is Virtual Memory?
As a quick refresher, programs (apps) consist of code and data. The code is loaded into memory when you launch an app. The code starts at a given point and progresses one instruction at a time. The data is either then read from the storage, retrieved over the network, generated, or a combination of all three. Each location in memory that stores code or data is known by its address. Just like a postal address that uniquely identifies a building, a memory address uniquely identifies a place in the RAM.