Comment 3 for bug 2026637

Generally the way to do this in Debian at least would be something like

1. move the removed dependencies/recommends to a ubuntu-desktop-legacy metapackage/seed
2. recommend that so it is installed
3. one cycle later, drop the recommends (or move it to suggests to keep it installed on upgrades*)

(*) In Ubuntu, ubuntu-release-upgrader removes Suggests

Adding the recommends for a month to transition devel users using apt, and then removing it again and make u-r-u install it could make sense.

On the other hand we also kind of strive to have upgraded users have the same experience (which is why we removed suggested-only packages in the first place), so weigh the benefits.

One thing to note is APT's metapackage handling:

1. apt remove metapackage keeps dependencies automatically installed
2. apt install foo where foo conflicts with metapackage causes metapackage to be removed and the manual bit to transition to the dependencies.