A package system is at the base of the management of the software on every Linux distro.
Even if software is made by many different individuals and organizations, a clever dependency logic with coherent shared libraries has made possible the coexistence of heterogeneous programs.

A different package is usually needed for each different version of each distribution.
The formats used (rpm, deb, tgz, portage) use underlining command line tools that may have different front-ends for package management but the same working logic.

Package automatic upgrade is a feature present in every major distribution with a common logic:
- scheduling of update activities via crontab
- download via selected mirror sites of the updated packages,
- update of the package on the system (simple, fast, effective, secure) using the usual system's packet management tools.
- definition of what kind of packages have to be automatically updated (generally, kernel in never updated in an unattended way).
In some cases the user may choose the preferred update method/tool.