The second alpha version of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot has been released. Here the announcement:

Pre-releases of Oneiric Ocelot are *not* encouraged for anyone
needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running
into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however,
recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help
in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Alpha 2 is the second in a series of milestone images that
will be released throughout the Oneiric development cycle.

New packages showing up for the first time include:
* Linux Kernel 3.0-rc5
* gcc 4.6.1 compiler
* Firefox 5.0
* Thunderbird 5.0
* A Mesa 7.11 snapshot.

You can download Alpha 2 images here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/
(Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server)

Additional images are also available at:

http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/
(Ubuntu Server Cloud )
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/
(Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/oneiric/alpha-2/
(Edubuntu)


Alpha 2 includes a number of software updates that are
ready for wider testing. This is quite an early set of images,
so you should expect some bugs. For a more detailed description
of the changes in the Alpha 2 release and the known bugs (which
can save you the effort of reporting a duplicate bug, or help
you find proven workarounds), please see:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/


If you're interested in following the changes as we further
develop Oneiric, we suggest that you subscribe initially to the
ubuntu-devel-announce list. This is a low-traffic list (a few
posts a week) carrying announcements of approved specifications,
policy changes, alpha releases, and other interesting events.

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce


Enjoy,

Kate Stewart, on behalf of the Ubuntu release team.