Ok, I see what's happening here. The reason artful doesn't prompt is
because /etc/localtime is prepopulated within the image:
$ tar tvf ubuntu-artful-core-cloudimg-amd64-root.tar.gz |grep zoneinfo
lrwxrwxrwx root/root 0 2018-05-24 13:44 etc/localtime ->
/usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC
$
This is despite the fact that the tzdata package itself is not
installed.
In bionic, this symlink is not present:
$ tar tvf ubuntu-bionic-core-cloudimg-amd64-root.tar.gz |grep zoneinfo
$
This is in fact a deliberate change in bionic as part of the minimal
image work; in livecd-rootfs live-build/auto/build:
if [ "${SUBPROJECT:-}" = minimized ] \
&& ! Chroot chroot dpkg -l tzdata 2>&1 |grep -q ^ii; then
# workaround for tzdata purge not removing these files
rm -f chroot/etc/localtime chroot/etc/timezone
fi
The behavior you're seeing in bionic is the *expected* behavior on a
completely fresh install of the tzdata package. The reason you don't
see this behavior in prior releases is that it's not truly a fresh
install, and there is cruft left on the filesystem in the form of
/etc/localtime. If /etc/localtime already exists, tzdata has no need to
prompt instead of using the existing configuration on the system. If it
doesn't exist, tzdata will ask debconf, which means a prompt by default.
So your setting DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive, if you don't care about
/etc/localtime and just tzdata to use the default, is the correct fix
here.
** Changed in: tzdata (Ubuntu)
Status: New => Invalid
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1773687
Title:
[bionic] no unattended installation
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