[15:59] <realtime-neil> Is there a way to prevent ubiquity from installing certain packages? For reference, I'm still using (and customizing) the ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
[16:00] <realtime-neil> e.g., I'd like to avoid installing the `transmission*` packages, if I could.
[16:12] <CarlFK> realtime-neil: my guess: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_tweaking_candidate_version  "never install the package even if recommended     "
[16:13] <CarlFK> I am guessing transmission is a dependency of ubuntu-desktop, no clue what will happen when that install fails, last guess: the installer stops
[16:27] <cjwatson> ubuntu-desktop Recommends transmission-gtk, it doesn't depend on it.
[16:28] <cjwatson> But ubiquity works by copying a squashfs, so you can't avoid installing the packages there as such, only arrange to remove them afterwards.
[17:59] <realtime-neil> cjwatson: understood and I concur, but I have demonstrated with my own tests that the unmodified ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso ubiquity installs the `ubuntu-desktop` virtual package.
[18:00] <realtime-neil> CarlFK: that's a good idea --- I'll try that next
[18:01] <cjwatson> Indeed - I don't think that contradicts me
[18:06] <realtime-neil> cjwatson: yep, i misread that; your implication being that, despite what happens with the squashfs, there's this implicit `apt-get -y install ubuntu-desktop` happening _after_ the unsquashfs that I can't control.
[18:07] <realtime-neil> Well, I can't control it _yet_, at any rate.
[18:09] <cjwatson> realtime-neil: That wasn't my implication; I was just saying that transmission-gtk is in the squashfs so it isn't ordinarily possible to stop ubiquity installing it.  (But I missed that you're editing squashfses, so this probably isn't so relevant.  Carry on.)
[18:10] <cjwatson> If you're editing the squashfs then you'd just arrange for the squashfs not to have that package installed.
[18:25] <realtime-neil> Wow, okay, apparently it _is_ already installed within the filesystem.squashfs ... I missed that yesterday