One of the nice things about upstart is that it helps this situation out a lot. Disabling a service before you install the package is as simple as creating a /e

One of the nice things about upstart is that it helps this situation out a lot. Disabling a service before you install the package is as simple as creating a /etc/init/servicename.override file with "manual" in it. Unlike some other solutions (like placing a full configuration file before install) this doesn't trigger a conflict with the package installation. The thing is that for a desktop user, starting the service is fine. A lot of the time it's what you want. And that's Ubuntu's main raison d'etre. Also note that autostarting when installing is different from autostarting when booting. It's the former that I find frustrating, not so much the latter. Generally speaking, I have plenty of opportunity to tweak the boot behaviour between installing and rebooting (assuming the server ever reboots at all).