Question

urgent please, in operating system:

One simple method to protect a critical section is to use mutex locks, also called spinlocks. An alternative method would be use a binary semaphore initialized to 1, with the implementation that uses busy waiting. Is there any real difference between these two methods? Explain.

Answer 1

Dear Student,

Answer :

BINARY SEMAPHORE MUTEX

It's functionality is based up on signalling mechanism	It's functionality is based up on locking mechanism
The thread which is having higher priority than current thread can also release binary semaphore and take lock.	The thread which has acquired mutex can only release Mutex when it goes out from critical section.
Semaphore value is varied according to wait () and signal () operations.	Mutex values can be changed just as locked or unlocked.
Multiple number of threads can acquire binary semaphore at a time concurrently.	Only one thread can have mutex at a time
Binary semaphore does not have ownership.	There is ownership associated with mutex because only owner can release the lock.
They are faster than mutex because any other thread/process can unlock binary semaphore.	They are slower than binary semaphores because only thread which has acquired must release the lock.
If you have number of instances for resource it is better to use Binary semaphore.	If you have single instance for resource it is better to use mutex.

Hope This Helps.

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