We investigate in the paper general (not necessarily definite) first-order symmetric systems of differential equations in the framework of extension theory of symmetric linear relations. For this aim we first introduce the new notion of a boundary pair {H0 ⊕ H1 , Γ} for A * , where A is a symmetric linear relation, H0 is a boundary Hilbert space, H1 is a subspace in H0 and Γ : A * → H0 ⊕ H1 is a (possibly multivalued) linear mapping satisfying the abstract Green's identity. Unlike known concept of a boundary pair for A * our definition is suitable for relations A with possibly unequal deficiency indices n±(A).Next, the general symmetric systemis considered in the paper. We characterize explicitly the corresponding minimal relation Tmin, which enables us to construct a special (so-called decomposing) boundary pair {H0 ⊕ H1 , Γ} for the maximal relation Tmax. It turns out that the system is definite if and only if the mapping Γ is single-valued, in which case a decomposing boundary pair turns into the decomposing boundary triplet Π = {H, Γ0 , Γ1 } for Tmax. By using such a triplet we describe in terms of boundary conditions proper extensions of Tmin in the case of the regular endpoint a and arbitrary (possibly unequal) deficiency indices n±(Tmin). We also show that self-adjoint decomposing boundary conditions exist only for Hamiltonian systems; moreover, we describe all such conditions in the compact form. These results are generalizations of the known results by Rofe-Beketov on regular differential operators. Finally, we characterize all maximal dissipative and accumulative separated boundary conditions for arbitrary (not necessarily Hamiltonian) definite symmetric systems.