Some of the important difference between Spin Lock and Mutex are:
| Spinlock | Mutex |
| Spinlock is a busy waiting lock, that is process or thread is not put to sleep that is Process Descriptor(PD) or Thread Descriptor(TD) is not added to wait queue. | Mutex is a sleeping lock that is process or thread is put to sleep that is Process Descriptor(PD) or Thread Descriptor(TD) is added to wait queue. |
| There is no context switching involved | Context switching is involved. |
| This is useful for small critical section, else wastes CPU cycle. | This is useful for long critical sections otherwise a frequent context switching adds overhead. |
| Preemption is disabled | Prremption is enabled. |
Categories: Operating system (OS)
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