Mutexes SIG

The purpose of the Mutexes SIG is to provide a forum to discuss the strategy for solving the mutex conundrum in the Linux 2.6 kernel. There are a couple of different implementations (RT Mutexes and FUSYN). Neither of these projects has been adopted into the kernel yet. Basically, the RT Mutex code handles kernel priority interitance and deadlock detection. But there are no user APIs, no POSIX support, no timeouts, etc. The FUSYN project supports POSIX user space APIs and supports PI and PCP on top of NPTL.

This document contains a background of the projects involved, a comparison of project features, a description of the fundamental issues, potential solutions, and proposals for moving forward.

So, now both a short term and long term strategy are needed to provide kernel/user mutex support. In the short term, it may be a combination of RT Mutex and FUSYN. In the longer term, the best solution will be to have one mutex solution covering the capabilities of RT Mutexes and Robust Mutexes (FUSYN).

Most of the discussion takes place on the robustmutexes mailing list (archives).

Conference Calls

Meeting times: Next conference call is Wed (8/3) at 9AM (pacific)

Call info:
Tollfree: 1-888-566-8440
Toll - 1-719-785-4400
Passcode: 157091
This call is moderated, so you may be on hold until the moderator joins.

Agenda for next call

Upcoming Events

There will be an informal Mutexes SIG session at the Ottawa Linux Symposium. OLS is on July 20-23 in Ottawa, Canada. The exact time and place are still to be determined. Sven Dietrich (sdietrich@mvista.com) is the organizing contact for the Mutexes SIG meeting at OLS.