Now, the webcam issue : I have a QuickCam Messenger webcam, which is recognized correctly by Ubuntu, but it does not work with Skype or JMF (Java Media Framework) applications.

Here’s my dmesg output :

[30850.333403] gspca: probing 046d:08da
[30851.979243] zc3xx: probe 2wr ov vga 0×0000
[30852.023239] zc3xx: probe sensor -> 11
[30852.023244] zc3xx: Find Sensor HV7131R(c)
[30852.030593] gspca: probe ok
[30852.030667] gspca: probing 046d:08da
[30977.315326] zc3xx: probe 2wr ov vga 0×0000

koen@d820:/home/koen$ lsusb

Bus 005 Device 003: ID 046d:08da Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Messanger

I never had webcam issues with the previous Ubuntu releases.

Jaunty is using V4L2 and although drivers that are in the mainline kernel are often v4l2, many applications will only work with v4l1. Even v4l2 apps often don’t work with v4l2 webcams as the webcams often have camspecific (compressed) pixelformats and most applications don’t support all these.
Skype for one does not work. JMF applications either. The image from the camera is green and black garbage/noise.

The solution is to preload the backward compatibility library for v4l to get it to work.

koen@d820:/home/koen$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype &

If you want to setup system-wide and at startup, then create a file /etc/ld.so.preload and put the path to this library in. Or use ld.so.preload-manager from the Ubuntu repositories to do this for you.

koen@d820:/home/koen$ sudo ld.so.preload-manager /usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so

Happy camming !