What is the term for the area of a disk that holds inactive pages of memory under the management of the Linux kernel?

The area of a disk that holds inactive pages of memory while being managed by the Linux kernel is referred to as swap space. Swap space serves as an overflow area when the system runs out of RAM; it allows the kernel to move less frequently accessed pages out of memory and into this reserved space on the disk. This mechanism helps ensure that active applications continue to perform efficiently by freeing up RAM for processes that require immediate access to their memory.

In contrast, the buffer cache is used for caching data from the disk to speed up read/write operations, while the file system refers to the organizational method for storing data on disk drives. Virtual memory, on the other hand, extends the available address space by using both physical RAM and disk space, including swap space, but does not specifically denote just the area used for inactive pages. Therefore, swap space is the most precise term for the specific area of the disk dedicated to managing inactive memory pages within the Linux environment.