Comment 2 for bug 777879

Ubuntu-minimal is a meta-package, consisting of a list of packages required for a minimal ubuntu install, and if you remove any of these, ubuntu-minimal will also be removed. So ntpdate is required (the computer will work without it, however you might experience some unexpected behavior, e.g. upgrading to the next release might fail), the description says that it's optional only if the ntp package is installed.
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