Anyone willing to look into it?

It's not broken. We don't have it. See this bug.

Yes it is, you're ultimately misunderstanding what the bug is.

When we list packages in the respective file, Ubiquity should automatically read this file and remove those packages after install. Other flavors already utilize this, and other flavors have it working. It's just injected into the squashfs by livecd-rootfs.

But, since we decided to be a special snowflake with our seeds and split it up, there's hacks galore to support this. I think something along the way is broken, otherwise we just need to add more to this list.

Ultimately, when the install is done with the Minimal option, we need to confirm all of those packages are removed after install. If they aren't, that's a bug, plain and simple. Lubuntu Core is irrelevant here.

Nope, that's all included. Read the description. Do note that Xubuntu does not have the minimal, because they, too, have a core. I think we should just forego it (i.e. just get rid of the remove file) in 18.04 and just stick with the way things always have been. Then we can focus on actually getting something working in 18.10.

As for focusing on 18.10, I agree. Let's do it.

But Xubuntu has a whole separate ISO called "Xubuntu Core" which is not the same as Lubuntu Core. Ours is just a sub metapackage to lubuntu-desktop in >= 18.04; we don't have separate ISOs. They don't have the functionality because they already have it elsewhere.

I still think we should get it working. Maybe after 18.10, but eventually.

Meh, same thing, different name.