Update-manager should provide option to remove unsupported, conflicting packages

[ctcarton]

Whenever I do a dist-upgrade (smart upgrade from the update-manager) I frequently have unsupported packages installed that conflict with new ubuntu packages that are supposed to replace them. This causes the upgrade to stop. Then I have to manually do a 'dpkg --remove' to remove the old non-ubuntu package, then 'apt-get -f install', then start again with dist-upgrade. This happened to me several times when upgrading from dapper to gutsy. It made the upgrade process significantly longer any more annoying than it should have been.

I would like an option in the update-manage to have it do this automatically for me - i.e., remove any unsupported packages that conflict with new, supported packages that it is trying to install.

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReleaseUpgrades#ready>: "If any manually-installed software will conflict: “This software conflicts and must be removed:”. The listbox should use the application’s icon and title if it is one, otherwise the generic package icon and the package name..."

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!