Attempting to remove installed LAMP server with tasksel removes ubuntu desktop

Wanting to install a development/home server on my system, I read up in the community docs about how to do so and ended up installing the LAMP system using tasksel.

I experienced some problems with it (probably my fault) and decided instead to go a different route. So, not wanting two different stacks on the system, I typed "sudo tasksel" into a terminal and when the program came up, I used the spacebar to remove the asterisk next to the "LAMP Server" option in the tasksel list.

I then hit tab to move down to confirm the operation and pressed the spacebar to begin.

tasksel then proceeded to not only remove the LAMP system, but the entire ubuntu desktop. It also seems to have stamped on my configuration files, to the point where networking no longer seems to come up automatically - although it did seem to take some time to remove network manager, so it might just be a case of using ifup/ifdown.

[note] that seems to be the case, I am now using tasksel to reinstall the ubuntu desktop.

I'm not sure how repeatable this bug is and I don't really have the hardware sitting around to try to repeat it, but if anyone has had a similar experience (which seems likely) they will attest to the horror of watching their carefully configured system get hosed like this.

This occurred using a fully updated 32 bit 8.4.1.

[update] this may be a duplicate report of bug 150252.