厕所的例子是一个有趣的类比:

Mutex: Is a key to a toilet. One person can have the key - occupy the toilet - at the time. When finished, the person gives (frees) the key to the next person in the queue. Officially: "Mutexes are typically used to serialise access to a section of re-entrant code that cannot be executed concurrently by more than one thread. A mutex object only allows one thread into a controlled section, forcing other threads which attempt to gain access to that section to wait until the first thread has exited from that section." Ref: Symbian Developer Library (A mutex is really a semaphore with value 1.) Semaphore: Is the number of free identical toilet keys. Example, say we have four toilets with identical locks and keys. The semaphore count - the count of keys - is set to 4 at beginning (all four toilets are free), then the count value is decremented as people are coming in. If all toilets are full, ie. there are no free keys left, the semaphore count is 0. Now, when eq. one person leaves the toilet, semaphore is increased to 1 (one free key), and given to the next person in the queue. Officially: "A semaphore restricts the number of simultaneous users of a shared resource up to a maximum number. Threads can request access to the resource (decrementing the semaphore), and can signal that they have finished using the resource (incrementing the semaphore)." Ref: Symbian Developer Library

你可以通过以下方法清楚地记住不同之处:

互斥锁:用于保护关键区域， 互斥锁不能跨进程使用，只能在单个进程中使用 信号量:用于信号资源的可用性。 信号量既可以跨进程使用，也可以跨进程使用。

互斥锁

Until recently, the only sleeping lock in the kernel was the semaphore. Most users of semaphores instantiated a semaphore with a count of one and treated them as a mutual exclusion lock—a sleeping version of the spin-lock. Unfortunately, semaphores are rather generic and do not impose any usage constraints. This makes them useful for managing exclusive access in obscure situations, such as complicated dances between the kernel and userspace. But it also means that simpler locking is harder to do, and the lack of enforced rules makes any sort of automated debugging or constraint enforcement impossible. Seeking a simpler sleeping lock, the kernel developers introduced the mutex.Yes, as you are now accustomed to, that is a confusing name. Let’s clarify.The term “mutex” is a generic name to refer to any sleeping lock that enforces mutual exclusion, such as a semaphore with a usage count of one. In recent Linux kernels, the proper noun “mutex” is now also a specific type of sleeping lock that implements mutual exclusion.That is, a mutex is a mutex.

互斥锁的简单性和效率来自于它在信号量要求之外强加给用户的附加约束。信号量是按照Dijkstra的原始设计来实现最基本的行为，而互斥锁则不同，它的用例更严格、更窄: n一次只能有一个任务持有互斥锁。也就是说，互斥锁的使用计数总是1。

Whoever locked a mutex must unlock it. That is, you cannot lock a mutex in one context and then unlock it in another. This means that the mutex isn’t suitable for more complicated synchronizations between kernel and user-space. Most use cases, however, cleanly lock and unlock from the same context. Recursive locks and unlocks are not allowed. That is, you cannot recursively acquire the same mutex, and you cannot unlock an unlocked mutex. A process cannot exit while holding a mutex. A mutex cannot be acquired by an interrupt handler or bottom half, even with mutex_trylock(). A mutex can be managed only via the official API: It must be initialized via the methods described in this section and cannot be copied, hand initialized, or reinitialized.

[1] Linux内核开发，第三版Robert Love

最好的解决方案

唯一的区别是

1.互斥锁-> lock和unlock属于锁定互斥锁的线程。

2.信号量->没有所有权，即;如果一个线程调用semwait(s)，任何其他线程都可以调用sempost(s)来移除锁。

The basic issue is concurrency. There is more than one flow of control. Think about two processes using a shared memory. Now only one process can access the shared memory at a time. If more than one process accesses the shared memory at a time, the contents of shared memory would get corrupted. It is like a railroad track. Only one train can run on it, else there would be an accident.So there is a signalling mechanism, which a driver checks. If the signal is green, the train can go and if it is red it has to wait to use the track. Similarly in case of shared memory, there is a binary semaphore. If the semaphore is 1, a process acquires it (makes it 0) and goes ahead and accesses it. If the semaphore is 0, the process waits. The functionality the binary semaphore has to provide is mutual exclusion (or mutex, in short) so that only one of the many concurrent entities (process or thread) mutually excludes others. It is a plus that we have counting semaphores, which help in synchronizing multiple instances of a resource.

互斥是信号量提供的基本功能。现在在线程上下文中，我们可能有不同的名称和语法。但基本概念是相同的:如何在并发编程中保持代码和数据的完整性。在我看来，像所有权和相关检查这样的东西是由实现提供的改进。

在窗口，差异如下所示。 MUTEX:成功执行等待的进程必须执行一个信号，反之亦然。二进制信号量:不同的进程可以在一个信号量上执行等待或信号操作。