Before futex and current implementation of pthreads for Linux, the NPTL (require kernel 2.6 and newer), there were two other threading libraries with POSIX Thread API for Linux: linuxthreads and NGPT (which was based on Gnu Pth. LinuxThreads was the only widely used libpthread for years (and it can still be used in some strange & unmaintained micro-libc to work on 2.4; other micro-libc variants may have own builtin implementation of pthread-like API on top of futex+clone). And Gnu Pth is not thread library, it is single process thread with user-level "thread" switching.
You should know that there are several Threading Models when we check does the kernel knows about some or all of user threads (how many CPU cores can be used with adding threads to the program; what is the cost of having the thread / how many threads may be started). Models are named as M:N where M is userspace thread number and N is thread number schedulable by OS kernel:
- "1:1" ''kernel-level threading'' - every userspace thread is schedulable by OS kernel. This is implemented in Linuxthreads, NPTL and many modern OS.
- "N:1" ''user-level threading'' - userspace threads are planned by the userspace, they all are invisible to the kernel, it only schedules one process (and it may use only 1 CPU core). Gnu Pth (GNU Portable Threads) is example of it, and there are many other implementations for some computer architectures.
- "M:N" ''hybrid threading'' - there are some entities visible and schedulable by OS kernel, but there may be more user-space threads in them. And sometimes user-space threads will migrate between kernel-visible threads.
With 1:1 model there are many classic sleep mechanisms/APIs in Unix like select/poll and signals and other variants of IPC APIs. As I remember, Linuxthreads used separate processes for every thread (with fully shared memory) and there was special manager "thread" (process) to emulate some POSIX thread features. Wikipedia says that SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 were used in Linuxthreads for some internal communication between threads, same says IBM "The synchronization of primitives is achieved by means of signals. For example, threads block until awoken by signals.". Check also the project FAQ http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/linuxthreads/faq.html#H.4 "With LinuxThreads, I can no longer use the signals SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2 in my programs! Why?"
LinuxThreads needs two signals for its internal operation. One is used to suspend and restart threads blocked on mutex, condition or semaphore operations. The other is used for thread cancellation.
On ``old'' kernels (2.0 and early 2.1 kernels), there are only 32 signals available and the kernel reserves all of them but two: SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2. So, LinuxThreads has no choice but use those two signals.
With "N:1" model thread may call some blocking syscall and block everything (some libraries may convert some blocking syscalls into async, or use some SIGALRM or SIGVTALRM magic); or it may call some (very) special internal threading function which will do user-space thread switching by rewriting machine state register (like switch_to in linux kernel, save IP/SP and other regs, restore IP/SP and regs of other thread). So, kernel does not wake any user thread directly from userland, it just schedules whole process; and user space scheduler implement thread synchronization logic (or just calls sched_yield or select when there is no threads to work).
With M:N model things are very complicated... Don't know much about NGPT... There is one paragraph about NGPT in POSIX Threads and the Linux Kernel, Dave McCracken, OLS2002,330 page 5
There is a new pthread library under development called NGPT. This library is based on the GNU Pth library, which is an M:1 library. NGPT extends Pth by using multiple Linux tasks, thus creating an M:N library. It attempts to preserve Pth’s pthread compatibility while also using multiple Linux tasks for concurrency, but this effort is hampered by the underlying differences in the Linux threading model. The NGPT library at present uses non-blocking wrappers around blocking system calls to avoid
blocking in the kernel.
Some papers and posts: POSIX Threads and the Linux Kernel, Dave McCracken, OLS2002,330, LWN post about NPTL 0.1
The futex system call is used extensively in all synchronization
primitives and other places which need some kind of
synchronization. The futex mechanism is generic enough to support
the standard POSIX synchronization mechanisms with very little
effort. ... Futexes also allow the implementation of inter-process
synchronization primitives, a sorely missed feature in the old
LinuxThreads implementation (Hi jbj!).
NPTL design pdf:
5.5 Synchronization Primitives
The implementation of the synchronization primitives such as mutexes, read-write
locks, conditional variables, semaphores, and barriers requires some form of kernel
support. Busy waiting is not an option since threads can have different priorities (beside wasting CPU cycles). The same argument rules out the exclusive use of sched yield. Signals were the only viable solution for the old implementation. Threads would block in the kernel until woken by a signal. This method has severe drawbacks in terms of speed and reliability caused by spurious wakeups and derogation of the quality of the signal handling in the application.
Fortunately some new functionality was added to the kernel to implement all kinds
of synchronization primitives: futexes [Futex]. The underlying principle is simple but
powerful enough to be adaptable to all kinds of uses. Callers can block in the kernel
and be woken either explicitly, as a result of an interrupt, or after a timeout.
