Comment 31 for bug 42555

Matt, this patch won't be accepted because it will break as soon as you run ubuntu-meta's update script again (it is important for us that this work, which means that it is strictly forbidden to patch its generated output directly), and the seed syntax doesn't support alternatives. This isn't as easy to fix as all that.

Furthermore, as previously stated - but I'll restate it here since you expressed doubt - we actually think it's a good thing that ubuntu-minimal should be removed if you deviate from the standard Ubuntu system; it means that we have a much better idea what we're dealing with in support terms, and it means that we can tell people to ensure that ubuntu-minimal (et al) are installed as a baseline for problem resolution. I know that the current situation is controversial in places but it *is* deliberate.

I would like to see the upgrade tools do a better job of handling the case where ubuntu-minimal is missing, and any case where the sort of forceful interactivity you describe is required (aside from three-way merging of configuration files) should be considered as a bug.