Paging refers to writing portions, termed pages, of a process’ memory to disk. Swapping, strictly speaking, refers to writing the entire process, not just part, to disk. In Linux, true swapping is exceedingly rare, but the terms paging and swapping often are used interchangeably.

What is paging space in Linux?

Swap space or paging space is an area of disk that is used for storage of memory that has been swapped out (paged out) of RAM. Linux’s memory is divided into chunks of memory called pages. Swapping is the process where Linux moves the contents of memory to a preconfigured area of disk called a swap space.

What is the purpose of paging?

Paging is used for faster access to data. When a program needs a page, it is available in the main memory as the OS copies a certain number of pages from your storage device to main memory. Paging allows the physical address space of a process to be noncontiguous.