Ubuntu oneiric does not have the libdb4.8++ or libdb4.8++-dev packages, meaning running or building bitcoin impossible without adding those extra packages to the bitcoin repository.

What do you think would be the best way to go about this:

• Upgrade to libdb5.x++ and cause new wallets to be incompatible with old bitcoin versions
• include the libdb4.8++ packages and potentially cause collisions with other software making this same decision
• Upgrade to libdb5.x, cause new wallets to be incompatible with old bitcoin versions, but make an export option that will potentially be compatible "forever"

The export wallet command could export as a GPG compatible ascii armoured ecdsa key set, a json file, or an XML file

[EDIT] the current leaning in #bitcoin-dev is to go with "include the libdb4.8++ packages and potentially cause collisions with other software making this same decision" Then move to machine-dependant wallets once a bitcoin standard export format has been chosen