Interview Q&A / Operating Systems
Operating Systems interview questions
Processes, threads, scheduling, memory and deadlocks, in plain words.
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- What is a spinlock, and when is it better than a lock that puts the thread to sleep?
A spinlock makes a waiting thread loop on the CPU until the lock is free. It is better when the lock is held for a very short time, because sleeping and waking cost more than a brief spin.
IntermediateQuick answer1 min read