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.