Please cancel/close this bug report. I have determined by further testing that the issue was related to a VMWare virtual machine which apparently became corrupted. I have verified that the ssh launcher creation and use function as they should in Ubuntu 8.04 when run on a physical install or as a Virtual machine in VMWare workstation on Linux, a Virtual machine in VMWare player on Linux and as a Virtual machine in VMWare player on XP.
Please cancel/close this bug report. I have determined by further testing that the issue was related to a VMWare virtual machine which apparently became corrupted. I have verified that the ssh launcher creation and use function as they should in Ubuntu 8.04 when run on a physical install or as a Virtual machine in VMWare workstation on Linux, a Virtual machine in VMWare player on Linux and as a Virtual machine in VMWare player on XP.