Is a package specific to a Linux distribution? How to protect against KRACK

I run multiple distributions of Linux. I am researching how to patch against KRACK . The package that is vulnerable in Linux is 'wpa_supplicant'. According to the Vendor Responses the "Linux patch" for wpa_supplicant can be found here , whereas the (for example) Fedora patch can be found here and the Debian patch can be found here . **In which circumstances would/could I download and apply the so called "Linux patch" directly**? Is that only if I'm using the Linux Kernel directly? Otherwise, if I'm running on a specific distribution of Linux, do I need to wait for a patch from that specific distribution? Note my question refers to a specific vulnerability (KRACK), but **I'm trying to understand generally, what is the difference between what the project puts out (in this case the hostapd and wpa_supplicant project) versus what the different Linux distributions release.**