Upgrade policy and tools
Moving with the times.
Most of the distros are based on Arch Linux. The two exceptions are Maui, based on Ubuntu and Netrunner, based on a snapshot of Debian Testing. All projects use the tools of the distribution they are based on to deliver updates. The Archbased distributions use Octopi, a graphical frontend to Arch’s pacman package manager, to install individual packages as well as to keep the installation updated. Maui and Netrunner use Synaptic for installing individual packages and Mint’s Update Manager instead of Ubuntu’s.
One obvious difference between the two systems is that the update process of the distros that use pacman is more verbose and sometimes requires manual confirmations. Also, the process of updating the mirror list varies from one distribution to another.
Maui by default follows a standard release cycle. If you need bleeding-edge software you can turn your installation into a part rolling release by enabling the Xenial backports channel. Similarly you can run the latest Netrunner release as a stable install or enable Debian’s testing repository.
In contrast, Manjaro is a fully rolling release much like Arch itself. KaOS too. The developers ensure that even if a package hasn’t been updated in a year it will be rebuilt so that it integrates well with the rest of the system. Also when it comes to the kernel, the distro offers two options. There’s the stable Linux kernel and a fully-rolling Linux-next kernel. The Chakra developers came up with a halfrolling release model to deliver stable core components along with the latest apps and security updates, giving you the best of both worlds.