[$] An introduction to lockless algorithms

Lockless algorithms are of interest for the Linux kernel when traditionallocking primitives either cannot be used or are not performant enough.For this reason they come up every now and then on LWN; one of the lastmentions, which prompted me to write this article series, was last July.Topics that arise even more frequently are read-copy-update (RCU - thesearticles from 2007 are still highly relevant), reference counting, andways of wrapping lockless primitives into higher-level,more easily understood APIs. These articles will delve into the conceptsbehind lockless algorithms and how they are used in the kernel.