newby needing help

[neal]

Hello List,

I've been reading the list for a few weeks now and trying 
out 6.2STABLE. I've been using Linux for the past 6years and 
dos/windows a lot longer before that. Now I'm trying out 
something new and I really like it. Even better, there are 
both a mailing list and a newsgroup for support, wahay! no 
[expletive] forums! IMHO something that is done FOR the 
users and for which I am truly grateful.

I've checked out all the main functions I want from FreeBSD 
and had them all working (hehe, but since broke some) so I'm 
happy it will do the things I want so far.

First question, what is recommended regarding doing updates. 
Is it best to just do all of them? I have always had 
problems doing this e.g. with Mandrake and other Linuxs and 
so am reluctant, but if it is usual I'll give it a try. (I'm 
also reluctant as I assume a full update will update xorg to 
7.3 and I have 7.2 installed with the latest nvidia 9# 
driver and it works beautifully so would rather stay with that.

I have read the Handbook, but still have a problem 
understanding how to map my ext2 and ext3 partitions to the 
UFS notation. e.g. I have a drive hda, it has a swap an 
unused space and four partitions one of which is my home 
partition hda7. How do I refer to this home partition using 
ad0??? notation (as this is what I understand I need to do, 
if not please enlighten). I have installed the ext2fs 
utilities/drivers and can mount an ext2 fs written on dvd 
without problems.

I intend to do a completely fresh install and would like to 
compile for my specific pc kit. Would I be best doing this 
following installation and initial setting up? and is it 
possible to load something from a package now and later 
reinstall from ports?

TIA

neal.