Debian apt-get / FreeBSD ports

[Luke Bakken]

> I come from a Debian background, i normally 'apt-get update' the list of
> the packages that apt-get mirrors serve before 'apt-get install'ing any
> package. Is there anything like that while using FreeBSD ports? If no,
> How does ports know what are the versions of the latest packages?

I have had good results using the portsnap and portupgrade/portinstall
utilities. The other responses you've received point to the relevant
parts of the FreeBSD handbook/manual pages.

Enjoy FreeBSD!