维基百科有一个关于信号量和互斥量区别的很好的章节:

A mutex is essentially the same thing as a binary semaphore and sometimes uses the same basic implementation. The differences between them are: Mutexes have a concept of an owner, which is the process that locked the mutex. Only the process that locked the mutex can unlock it. In contrast, a semaphore has no concept of an owner. Any process can unlock a semaphore. Unlike semaphores, mutexes provide priority inversion safety. Since the mutex knows its current owner, it is possible to promote the priority of the owner whenever a higher-priority task starts waiting on the mutex. Mutexes also provide deletion safety, where the process holding the mutex cannot be accidentally deleted. Semaphores do not provide this.

锁只允许一个线程进入被锁的部分，并且锁不与任何其他进程共享。

互斥锁与锁相同，但它可以是系统范围的(由多个进程共享)。

信号量的作用与互斥量相同，但允许x个线程进入，这可以用于限制同时运行的cpu、io或ram密集型任务的数量。

关于互斥量和信号量区别的更详细的文章请阅读这里。

您还可以使用读/写锁，在任何给定时间允许无限数量的读取器或1个写入器。

这些描述是从。net的角度出发的，对于所有操作系统/语言可能不是100%准确。

维基百科有一个关于信号量和互斥量区别的很好的章节:

A mutex is essentially the same thing as a binary semaphore and sometimes uses the same basic implementation. The differences between them are: Mutexes have a concept of an owner, which is the process that locked the mutex. Only the process that locked the mutex can unlock it. In contrast, a semaphore has no concept of an owner. Any process can unlock a semaphore. Unlike semaphores, mutexes provide priority inversion safety. Since the mutex knows its current owner, it is possible to promote the priority of the owner whenever a higher-priority task starts waiting on the mutex. Mutexes also provide deletion safety, where the process holding the mutex cannot be accidentally deleted. Semaphores do not provide this.

我的理解是互斥量只能在单个进程中使用，但可以跨多个线程使用，而信号量可以跨多个进程和它们对应的线程集使用。

此外，互斥是二进制的(它要么被锁定要么被解锁)，而信号量有计数的概念，或者一个包含多个锁定和解锁请求的队列。

有人能证实我的解释吗?我说的是Linux环境，特别是使用内核2.6.32的Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)版本6。

看一看John Kopplin的多线程教程。

在线程间同步一节中，他解释了事件、锁、互斥量、信号量和可等待计时器之间的区别

A mutex can be owned by only one thread at a time, enabling threads to coordinate mutually exclusive access to a shared resource Critical section objects provide synchronization similar to that provided by mutex objects, except that critical section objects can be used only by the threads of a single process Another difference between a mutex and a critical section is that if the critical section object is currently owned by another thread, EnterCriticalSection() waits indefinitely for ownership whereas WaitForSingleObject(), which is used with a mutex, allows you to specify a timeout A semaphore maintains a count between zero and some maximum value, limiting the number of threads that are simultaneously accessing a shared resource.

使用Linux变体上的C编程作为示例的基本情况。

锁:

•通常是一个非常简单的构造二进制在操作中锁定或解锁

•没有线程所有权、优先级、顺序等概念。

•通常是旋转锁，线程不断检查锁的可用性。

•通常依赖于原子操作，例如Test-and-set, compare-and-swap, fetch-and-add等。

•通常需要硬件支持原子操作。

文件锁:

•通常用于协调多个进程对文件的访问。

多个进程可以持有读锁，但是当任何一个进程持有写锁时，不允许其他进程获得读或写锁。

•示例:flock, fcntl等。

互斥:

互斥锁函数调用通常在内核空间中工作，并导致系统调用。

•它使用了所有权的概念。只有当前持有互斥锁的线程才能解锁它。

互斥不是递归的(异常:PTHREAD_MUTEX_RECURSIVE)。

•通常用于与条件变量关联，并作为参数传递给例如pthread_cond_signal, pthread_cond_wait等。

•一些UNIX系统允许多个进程使用互斥锁，尽管这可能不是在所有系统上强制执行。

信号量:

•这是一个内核维护的整数，其值不允许低于零。

•可用于同步进程。

信号量的值可以设置为大于1的值，在这种情况下，该值通常表示可用资源的数量。

•值限制为1和0的信号量称为二进制信号量。