diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 631af25cf..c27f6444d 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -10,13 +10,11 @@ DPKG_EXPORT_BUILDFLAGS = 1
 -include /usr/share/dpkg/buildflags.mk
 DEB_DISTRIBUTION = $(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -n -e 's/^Distribution: //p')
 
-# Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) and Debian 7 have versions of Automake too old
+# Debian 7 has a version of Automake too old
 # to support autoreconf; just use the tarball-shipped versions
 # Can be removed once we stop shipping on these versions
 %:
-ifeq ($(DEB_DISTRIBUTION), precise)
-	dh $@ --with autotools-dev
-else ifeq ($(findstring 7, $(shell cat /etc/debian_version)), 7)
+ifeq ($(findstring 7, $(shell cat /etc/debian_version)), 7)
 	dh $@ --with autotools-dev
 else
 	dh $@ --with autotools-dev,autoreconf