Comment 4 for bug 880984

more info. I booted an oneiric system with userdata containing :
#cloud-config
cloud_init_modules:
 - bootcmd
 - set_hostname
 - update_hostname
 - update_etc_hosts
 - rsyslog
 - ssh

Essentially that stops cloud-init from doing the resize2fs on boot, so I can subsequently install other packages and try. Heres what I found, after install e2fsprogs, e2fslibs, libcom, libss2 of the appropriate versions:

BOOT_SYS| e2fsprogs | result
precise_| debian | PASS
oneiric_| debian | PASS
precise_| precise | FAIL
precise_| oneiric | PASS

debian e2fsprogs: 1.42~WIP-2011-10-16-1
precise e2fsprogs: 1.42~WIP-2011-10-09-1ubuntu1
oneiric e2fsprogs: 1.41.14-1ubuntu3

So, this seems to be squarely a regression in the ubuntu delta from debian *and* the ubuntu deleta oneiric -> precise.