sysinstall, packages, ports q.s

[Sur Demir]

{ this is my second attempt to post, first one over Gmane did not
appear in list. Sorry if you get this twice. }

Hi,
I'm a bit new to FreeBSD, and have few questions challenging my Gentoo
Linux mindset:

1. I performed a Minimal 6.2 installation (it boots OK). Then I
selected
Post installation tasks -> Distributions. There I see "base
(required)",
it appears unselected. Does this install anything more than what
Minimal
install did at the first place?

2. I see pkg_add, pkg_delete, pkg_info but no pkg_update. How am I
supposed to keep my system up to date, unless I revert to ports?

3. Minimal install provides a number of commands by default like pkg_*,
portsnap, gcc, ls, vi, etc but pkg_info does not list any of their
packages, which means they're not managed under /var/db/pkg. Then, how
am I supposed to upgrade them without ending up with multiple versions?

4. I want to avoid the -CURRENT branch and want to stay with -STABLE
branch for now. The page http://www.freebsd.org/ports/index.html says:
"The Ports Collection supports the latest release on the
FreeBSD-CURRENT
and FreeBSD-STABLE branches."
This not clear to me: If I start using ports, am I on -STABLE or not?

5. make.conf is blank by default. Does CPU_TYPE default to i386 in this
case?

I hope I'm not too confused and sound silly. TIA.



       
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