Explain the circumstances under which os use mutexes, Operating System

Assignment Help:

Q. Give the reasons why Windows XP, Solaris and Linux implement multiple locking mechanisms. Explain the circumstances under which they use mutexes, spinlocks, semaphores, adaptive mutexes and condition variables. In every case explain why the mechanism is needed.

Answer: These operating systems offer different locking mechanisms depending on the application developers' needs. Spinlocks are helpful for multiprocessor systems where a thread can run in a busy-loop (for a short period of time) rather than incurring the overhead of being put in a sleep queue. Mutexes are valuable for locking resources. Solaris 2 utilizes adaptive mutexes meaning that the mutex is implemented with a spin lock on multiprocessor machines. Semaphores as well as condition variables are more appropriate tools for synchronization when a resource should be held for a long period of time, since spinning is inefficient for a long duration.


Related Discussions:- Explain the circumstances under which os use mutexes

Describe paging technique used in unix systems, Describe paging technique u...

Describe paging technique used in UNIX systems. When a process begin in UNIX, not every its memory pages are read in from the disk at once. In its place, the kernel loads into

What is a pure demand paging, What is a pure demand paging? When starti...

What is a pure demand paging? When starting implementation of a process with no pages in memory, the operating system sets the instruction pointer to the first instruction of t

Memory management, example of first fit best fit and worst fit

example of first fit best fit and worst fit

What is the use of inter process communication, What is the use of inter pr...

What is the use of inter process communication. Inter process communication gives a mechanism to allow the co-operating process to communicate with each other and synchronies t

Explain fixed partitioning, Explain fixed partitioning. Partitioning ar...

Explain fixed partitioning. Partitioning are the simpler techniques that don't involve virtual memory. Partitioning has been used in numerous variations in operating systems.

Define inter process communication (ipc), The term IPC (Inter-Process Commu...

The term IPC (Inter-Process Communication) defines several paths by which different process executing on some operating system interact between each other.

Define deadlock, Define deadlock. A process requests resources; if the ...

Define deadlock. A process requests resources; if the resources are not available at that time, the process enters a wait state. Waiting processes might be never again change s

Describe the three levels of data abstraction, There are three kinds of D...

There are three kinds of Data Abstraction: Physical level: The minimum level of abstraction defines how data are saved. Logical level: The next bigger level of a

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd