Comment 4 for bug 83604

I'm not sure for -s

With an empty /etc/ntp.conf ntpdate is not run at all because the set -e in ntpdate-date script.

sh -x /usr/sbin/ntpdate-debian

 set -e
+ [ -r /etc/default/ntpdate ]
+ . /etc/default/ntpdate
+ NTPDATE_USE_NTP_CONF=yes
+ NTPSERVERS=ntp.ubuntu.com
+ NTPOPTIONS=
+ [ yes = yes ]
+ [ -r /etc/ntp.conf.dhcp ]
+ [ -r /etc/ntp.conf ]
+ file=/etc/ntp.conf
+ [ -n /etc/ntp.conf ]
+ sed -rne s/^(server|peer) ([-_.[:alnum:]]+).*$/\2/p /etc/ntp.conf
+ grep -v ^127\.127\.
+ NTPSERVERS=

Now there's no /etc/ntp.conf in ntpdate package... And the culprit is :
system-tools-backends, via gnome update time?

But maybe ntpdate-date should test for -r and -s file?