Comment 15 for bug 1732032

Well, network-manager depends on iproute2, as do many other things. When I try to remove iproute2 from my system I get this:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gnome-control-center* ifupdown* iproute2* isc-dhcp-client* keepalived* network-manager* network-manager-config-connectivity-ubuntu* network-manager-gnome* network-manager-openvpn*
  network-manager-openvpn-gnome* network-manager-pptp* network-manager-pptp-gnome* openvpn* pppoeconf* ubuntu-desktop*

Of these I use extensively openvpn (via network manager) and, although it's not listed as a dependency, lxd (in the host), which I just confirmed uses iproute2 to set up its bridges and networking.

That being said, this is on artful, not xenial. The xenial dep8 tests in the excuses page are all green, though.

I'll setup up a xenial vm, with a lot of networking "things" (nics, bridges, server software), update iproute2, and let it boot.