Multi-threaded C program much slower in OS X than Linux

Question

I wrote this for an OS class assignment that I\'ve already completed and handed in. I posted this question yesterday, but due to \"Academic Honesty\" regulations I took it off u

Answer 1

MacOSX and Linux implement pthread differently, causing this slow behavior. Specifically MacOSX does not use spinlocks (they are optional according to ISO C standard). This can lead to very, very slow code performance with examples like this one.