I just found out the official live cd (ubuntu-8.10-desktop-amd64.iso) exhibits the same behaviour on a laptop I am currently testing on; as this is a bog-standard Sony Vaio laptop (Centrino platform, core2duo), I'm afraid this might be a much more widespread problem than just my system. Maybe a more alarming bug description might be warranted, along the lines of "Ubuntu freezes during shutdown process"...
I just found out the official live cd (ubuntu- 8.10-desktop- amd64.iso) exhibits the same behaviour on a laptop I am currently testing on; as this is a bog-standard Sony Vaio laptop (Centrino platform, core2duo), I'm afraid this might be a much more widespread problem than just my system. Maybe a more alarming bug description might be warranted, along the lines of "Ubuntu freezes during shutdown process"...