Abstract: Current memory management policy is, on most systems, global and inflexible. Current systems provide poor mechanisms to allow the programmer to share knowledge of access patterns that may generate improved page swapping and caching. In this paper we modify a popular operating system's memory management policy to take into account hints given by the programmer. The system consists of love and hate hints given to the kernel via system calls. It gives the programmer the option of moving a page to the front of the swap line or informing the operating system that the page should be kept on the active list. The paper demonstrates the improved performance that a system can gain through the use of the love and hate hints.

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