Hands-On System Programming with Linux

Pthreads and Linux

Of course, Linux wanted to be compliant with the POSIX threads standard; but who would actually build an implementation (remember, the standard is merely a draft specification document; it's not code)? Back in 1996, Xavier Leroy stepped up and built Linux's first pthreads implementation—a threading library called Linux threads. All considered, it was a good effort, but was not fully compatible with the (then brand new) pthreads standard.

An early effort at resolving problems was called Next Generation Posix Threads (NGPT). At around the same time, Red Hat threw in a team to work on this area as well; they called the project Native Posix Threading Library (NPTL). In the best traditions of open source culture, the NGPT developers ...