How can I enable the Front Page on minimal profile?
I got it. So, to document the solution:


Enable Views and Views UI modules
Either set the Front Page to the now-available frontpage for the traditional recent posts page


Another way (which was more suited to my intents) is to create a new content type (e.g. Static Page), create a new node of that type and set the site frontpage to that. This is useful when you are developing a theme with a custom frontpage template featuring several regions to be filled with different views.