diff -u traceroute-2.0.11/debian/changelog traceroute-2.0.11/debian/changelog
--- traceroute-2.0.11/debian/changelog
+++ traceroute-2.0.11/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+traceroute (2.0.11-2ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low
+
+  * initialized sim_probes with -1 and if not overwritten by the command line parameters, it is set to DEF_SIM_PROBES. If it is greater then max_hops*probes_per_hop, we lower it to this value so we can use it to trace less than 6 hops without explicitly specifying the -N parameter 
+
+ -- Guduleasa Alexandru Ionut <gulyan@gulyan-desktop>  Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:12:53 +0200
+
 traceroute (2.0.11-2) unstable; urgency=medium
 
   * Updating upstream URL.
only in patch2:
unchanged:
--- traceroute-2.0.11.orig/traceroute/traceroute.c
+++ traceroute-2.0.11/traceroute/traceroute.c
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
 static int debug = 0;
 static unsigned int first_hop = 1;
 static unsigned int max_hops = DEF_HOPS;
-static unsigned int sim_probes = DEF_SIM_PROBES;
+static unsigned int sim_probes = -1;//-1 will be converted to DEF_SIM_PROBES
 static unsigned int probes_per_hop = DEF_NUM_PROBES;
 
 static char **gateways = NULL;
@@ -536,6 +536,11 @@
 	    ex_error ("The specified type of tracerouting "
 			"is allowed for superuser only");
 
+	if(sim_probes == -1){
+		sim_probes = DEF_SIM_PROBES;
+		if(sim_probes > max_hops * probes_per_hop)
+			sim_probes = max_hops * probes_per_hop;
+	}
 
 	if (first_hop > max_hops)
 		ex_error ("first hop out of range");