Final answer:
Minor and major page faults refer to scenarios in computer memory management where a process tries to access memory not currently in RAM. Minor page faults occur when the needed data is on the virtual memory, while major page faults require data to be loaded from disk which includes I/O operations. Protection faults happen when a process attempts to access memory without the required permissions or violates access restrictions.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding Page Faults and Protection Faults
In the context of operating systems and memory management, minor and major page faults, as well as protection faults, are important concepts. A minor page fault occurs when the page a process is attempting to access is not in the main memory (RAM) but is available in the virtual memory (such as swap space on the disk) and not marked as a safeguarded or reserved page. This usually happens when a page has been swapped out to disk to free up physical memory. The operating system simply needs to read this page back into RAM, and no actual I/O operation is required because the page is still in the virtual memory address space. A major page fault, on the other hand, happens when the required page is neither in the main memory nor in the virtual memory and must be loaded from disk, such as from a file or a mapped network location. This involves I/O operations and is more time-consuming than minor page faults. A protection fault occurs when a process tries to access a page it does not have the rights to, or if the access type violates the protection setting of the page in the page table, for example, writing to a read-only page. This typically results in an error, and the operating system may terminate or suspend the process, depending on the situation.