This is the case now in vivid, "init" is essential and ensures that systemd-sysv or upstart-sysv is installed.
** Changed in: init-system-helpers (Ubuntu) Status: Triaged => Fix Released -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to init-system-helpers in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1357713 Title: Use essential "init" package to ensure that an init system is present Status in ifupdown package in Ubuntu: Invalid Status in init-system-helpers package in Ubuntu: Fix Released Bug description: I'm using Ubuntu 14.10 dev with ifupdown 0.7.48.1ubuntu4 and upstart 1.13.1-0ubuntu3 and currently it is possible to remove ifupdown and upstart as they are not essential packages or any essential/manual package does depend on them. Here is the output: root@ubuntu:/# apt-get remove ifupdown Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: ifupdown upstart 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded. After this operation, 895 kB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n Abort. As I know Ubuntu wants to change from upstart to systemd in the future so removing upstart may be fine but I'm wondering why ifupdown can be removed (wouldn't this remove the ability to create a network connection?). To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ifupdown/+bug/1357713/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp