gemeral questions (noobish)

[mcassar]

hi,
i have a new freebsd 7-release installed and very new to anything outside 
windows and may have jumped into the deep end to soon- but freebsd is the 
only thing i liked and want to keep, mess around with and hopefully learn 
something; so all i know is what i got from the handbook and the net this 
past month, and hope i can ask a few quick questions where i am a bit unclear 
(only looking for short answers and some diretion if possible).

firstly - i have installed kde3 and xfce4 from packages (like most of it -> 
xorg,etc) and have tried updates before with different results. i don't mind 
messing things up, as long as i can somehow surf or check mails - but would 
like to do a *proper* update.

firstly, are [freebsd-update] and [cvsup stable src.all] necessary before 
installing anything from ports? and are ports considered stable or current? 
or are they automatically matched to the installed version?

also, do portsnap and cvsup ports do the same thing? i've tried cvsup exactly 
after portsnap and it still seems to edit/update the ports tree.

why i'm confused is that i get alot of warnings when many ports try to build, 
and many hiccups in apps once they are installed, and i don't know which way 
to go --- gcc manual and fixing my environment, build options, etc,, or if it 
still something in the actual ports?

i'll stop there, sorry for this, but the thing is that between an install off 
the offical discs and updates to date, i easily have 350+ packages to do at 
once and have been jumping around from manual to manual still unsure where to 
start.

thanks in advance for any info