Missing bsdmainutils in Ubuntu/IBM 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.12 build

I would like to report that bsdmainutils package is not installed on the Ubuntu Xenial 16.04.12 (ppc64le) whilst it is in the Xenial amd64 variant.

Because the project I am working with uses the column CLI (which is bundled in bsdmainutils), I resolve to installing this package in before_scripts manually with:

before_script:
  - if [[ $TRAVIS_OS_NAME = linux ] && [ $TRAVIS_CPU_ARCH = ppc64le ]]; then sudo apt-get install -y bsdmainutils; fi

My question is Should this package be installed by default on ppc64le linux?

The documentation doesn’t make promises about any specific Apt packages being preinstalled.

Since Apt returns success if the package is already installed, you can install it unconditionally:

addons:
  apt:
    packages:
      - bsdmainutils