June 2010
Intermediate to advanced
440 pages
13h 13m
English
Content preview from Linux Kernel Development, Third Edition
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10. Kernel Synchronization Methods
The previous chapter discussed the sources of and solutions to race conditions. Thankfully, the Linux kernel provides a family of synchronization methods. The Linux kernel’s synchronization methods enable developers to write efficient and race-free code. This chapter discusses these methods and their interfaces, behavior, and use.
Atomic Operations
We start our discussion of synchronization methods with atomic operations because they are the foundation on which other synchronization methods are built. Atomic operations provide instructions that execute atomically—without interruption. Just as the atom was originally thought to be an indivisible particle, atomic operators are indivisible instructions. For ...