Como fazer uma webcam funcionar no UBUNTU

old webcam which doesn't work well with V4L2

There seems to be a known problem in Ubuntu Intrepid and Jaunty (at least), due to switching from the video system V4L to the more recent V4L2. Many applications, like webcams, doesn't seem to work well (or at all) with V4L2. But luckily there is a simple workaround to avoid the problem, through installing and loading some libraries with backward-compatibility with V4L, so that Flash sees again your Webcam, as it used to do until Ubuntu Hardy.

In order to do it, we need to shut down any application that might be doing some use of the video: editors, instant messengers or even the internet browser, and in a terminal we'll type:

sudo apt-get install ld.so.preload-manager

y after that, execute:

sudo ld.so.preload-manager /usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so

Then, you have to switch the video mode to V4L from the multimedia systems selector, through executing:

gstreamer-properties

Go to the Video tab, and change the default value to V4L.

That should do the work (it did for me using Jaunty, and for others as reported originally at this source).