Confused: how does pkg, ports, and freebsd-update work?

svn from devel/subversion uses svn.conf. Does that mean svnlite uses svn.conf too?

It probably does but the configuration file is not for configuring repositories or anything like what you can do with the net/svnup configuration file. Instead it's for configuring global settings for the Subversion client. Checked out copies in Subversion are self-contained, recognized by the existence of a .svn metadata directory, and the user is expected to either change the current directory to a working copy first or give the full path to the working copy on the command line.
 
If your using a version FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE or greater and all you want to do is sync from the latest available source , you can just use svnlite(1) which is included in the base install
Always and installed the sources from the port devel/subversion and verified the sources remotely and then update. As I remove the tree ports or sources if they are problems to check remotely? According to the FreeBSD Handbook, to update ports and sources is svn update /usr/ports and svn update /usr/src? After updating ports and sources, is it necessary the reconstruct world for system of desktop?

sidetone, I have nothing in the file /usr/local/etc/svnup.conf, necessarily I have to install the net/svnup port and then edit the file /usr/local/etc/svnup.conf? I do not understand it of section, net/svnup release, is command?
 
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The official FreeBSD handbook is probably the best piece of documentation I've ever seen, but the way I see it - it's more about getting certain things done allowing one to easily accomplish specific tasks.

Well, you need to remember that the software which actually constitutes the FreeBSD operating system---the "base system"---is pretty slim. It's ~800 megabytes or so for a default installation (I think---I've trimmed some stuff out of my install, so I don't recall exactly). The Handbook covers how to get those integral parts of FreeBSD working the way you want them to, sort of a comprehensive Beginner's Guide. There are some parts of the system not covered in the Handbook that are pretty awesome, things I've just stumbled across since I started using FreeBSD. If you wanna see a few of the things you can do with and to the system itself, check out things like nanobsd(8), release(7), build(7), make.conf(5) and src.conf(5) for starters.

Does anyone know any good tutorial or even a book that could help a noob such as myself understand how FreeBSD functions and get a little bit more familiar with its structure?

Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition is pretty well-written. As sidetone mentioned a little bit of it is outdated---how to update software, for example---but most of it is still relevant. It's also written for people new to *nix in general, so as a Debian user some of it will be old hat to you (You probably know what /etc and cron are by now, for example ;) ) My local public library had a copy on-hand.
 
I've used FreeBSD for quite a while, but still have what probably ranks as a newbie question. I think it is on topic for the thread. Here it is:

I know I can use portsnap to update the entire ports tree, but how do I update a single port? (preferably without using svn directly).
 
I know I can use portsnap to update the entire ports tree, but how do I update a single port?

This might be possible, but it's a very bad idea. Update one port, and if its dependencies have changed you'll have to update them as well. Update those dependencies, and you'll have to update any ports that share those dependencies. Failure to do so will inevitably break something, and the longer it takes for something to break the less likely you are to know what went wrong. You can't snatch a link from the middle of a chain without breaking the whole chain.

You could of course just keep the ports tree up-to-date and upgrade a single port with make reinstall; if anything breaks in such an instance, you would (at least ideally) just have to run a full update of all your ports to get everything working again. It's still a risk, though a much smaller one that's easier to resolve. I believe ports-mgmt/portmaster can be used to upgrade individual packages without much hassle, but again, you should always keep the entire ports tree in sync.
 
One more question :)
I've built a custom kernel for my hardware. Now when I'll run freebsd-update install what will happen with it? Will patches apply to the default kernel located in /boot/kernel.old?
 
freebsd-update requires a GENERIC kernel.
To clarify, you can still run freebsd-update with a custom kernel, but last time I tried, which was several years ago, it prompted/warned you to compile your kernel.
 
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