The Base FreeBSD System vs Third-Party Software
First of all, it is important to understand that FreeBSD hase The Base FreeBSD system and Third-Party Software.
The Base FreeBSD System is the core part of FreeBSD that includes the
kernel, standard system utilities, libraries, configuration files, and
essential tools required to run and manage the system. You manage it using Admin Tool freebsd-update. Tool freebsd-update is still widely used, but the FreeBSD project is gradually moving toward pkgbase tool where The Base FreeBSD System is splited into packages like FreeBSD-runtime, FreeBSD-lib, FreeBSD-kernel, etc. You will be able to manage the base system with pkg just like third-party software. It will be more modular and modern than freebsd-update, but pkgbase is not yet officially supported on RELEASE versions, therefore freebsd-update is still production ready tool for update and upgrade of The Base FreeBSD System.
Third-Party software in FreeBSD
is any application or tool not included in the base system, such as web
servers, editors, databases, programming languages, and desktop
environments. You manage it using the pkg package manager or by Ports Collection (source code + make).
Picture is worth 1,000 words, so I have prepared visualization to understand the difference between The Base FreeBSD System and Third-Party Software.
 |
The Base FreeBSD System and Third-Party Software |