Comment 12 for bug 107752

On Fri, 2007-20-04 at 14:02 +0000, Andrew Hunter wrote:
> I think it is reasonable to expect a user to remove anything they added
> to something like the sources.list if they are competent enough to put
> it their in the first place.

Yes and no. Automatix adds a fair bit, for example, without real user
intervention. Increasingly we are seeing scripts--designed to make
Ubuntu easier for non-specialists to use--that automatically modify
configuration files like sources.list.

In my view this is to be applauded--the most important part of "Just
Works" is that users shouldn't have to involve themselves with
configuration files to do basic and predictable tasks.

This is a pan-Ubuntu approach--see the various discussions we've been
having about the xorg configuration file and wide-screen monitors. It is
not hard to produce a mod line and insert it in xorg.conf--but you
shouldn't have to.

It is especially important that this be done at upgrade and
installation, IMO. This is the whole point behind the automatic notice
in the upgrade manager that a new distribution is available. It is also
not hard to type apt-get dist-upgrade at a console: but we use update
manager because it is more user oriented and the task is extremely
predictable.