Ubuntu team has released their 4th alpha version of Ubuntu 8.10 code named Intrepid Ibex. Some of the new features in this release includes

Encrypted private directory:

The idea is to provide a default location for users to securely store sensitive data using filesystem encryption.

home/username/Private for each user, permission 700 and an ecryptfs mountpoint. To test this, install encryptfs using the following command.

• sudo apt-get install ecryptfs-utils auth-client-config

• sudo auth-client-config -p ecryptfs_standard -t pam-auth,pam-session,pam-password

• ecryptfs-setup-private

Guest Sessions:

The GNOME user switching applet now provides an extra entry for starting a guest session. This creates a temporary password-less user account with restricted privileges; it cannot access any regular user’s home
directory, or permanently store data.

Network Manager 0.7:

• Managing system wide settings (no need to log in in order to get a connection.)
• Managing 3G connections (GSM/CDMA.)
• Managing multiple active devices.
• Managing PPP and PPPOE connections.
• Managing devices with static IP configurations.
• Managing routes for devices.

This release is for testing purposes only. Here are some of the few outstanding issues.

• When using manual partitioning and configuring crypt+LVM, the partitioning will fail in certain configurations.
• The Intrepid 2.6.26-5 kernel fails to boot as a guest under Virtualbox.
• On Ubuntu systems, the “Shutdown” button on the GNOME desktop does not shut down the system, but instead logs the user out.
• On Ubuntu systems, the default desktop theme is wrong.
• The X.org configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) still has InputDevice entries for the mouse and keyboard, but they are ignored now because input-hotplug is used.
• After upgrading to this version, some keys might misbehave in X.
• The OEM mode on both Desktop and Alternate CDs gets stuck in a loop.
• The “Print server” mode of the server CDs does not install the CUPS printing system.

Source: Ubuntu.