I know this is a lame cheap web camera, thus making it all the harder for me to find information about it.
Ubuntu seems to recognise it, putting it in as /dev/video0 Skype is able to see that the web cam is there, but can not get any picture data. Flash doesn't even pick up that the web cam exists.
I feel foolish asking such a lame question... but any help will be cool beans!
3 Answers
I have just installed my old cheap Technika H16WC-01 webcam on Ubuntu 16.04LTS x64.
It took a bit of searching around and so here I compiled the steps together to make it easier for others to follow. It's bit sketchy and chaotic because I was trying many things and not taking notes doing it, but below is what I think it boils down to.
1) Install cheese (sudo apt-get install cheese) and run it (cheese) from command line (terminal) or Laucher. The camera's LED flashed, but cheese was only showing a black screen for me initially. I have unplugged the webcam and run sudo ls /dev/video* then plugged it in again and repeated the same command. There was a difference, a file /dev/video0 was listed and cheese worked properly this time, showing the video. You can also try to see the webcam in vlc: vlc v4l2:///dev/video0I don't think you need to be worried if cheese or vlc does not work for you as long as you have the /dev/video0 file (or similar) appearing after plugging in your webcam.
2) I installed telepathy (sudo apt-get install telepathy-*) and empathy (sudo apt-get install empathy*) but I have removed both of them in the end and I suspect this does not need to be installed at all.
3) install "V4L" library by sudo apt-get libv4l-0 and sudo apt-get libv4l-0:i386. I suspect the "i386" version of the library is really the only thing needed here, because the default (64 bit version) did not work for me by itself (I run a 64bit version of Ubuntu)
4) try "env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype" from terminal window (command line). It worked for me and I could see the video preview in "Skype/Options/Video Devices" working.
5) Finally, to not need to run Skype from command line all the time, modify the "shortcut" icon in your applications menu (Launcher).
Install alacarte if you don't have it yet (sudo apt-get install alacarte) then run it (it's called "Main Menu" in your Launcher, if prefer to not search by name). In alacarte locate the "Skype" shortcut (in "Internet" section/submenu), select it, click Properties and change the Command Line entry to: env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype %U (or just insert the "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so" with spaces around it in front of "skype %U" if your PULSE_LATENCY parametre is different or not present at all)
This did the trick for me. Hope that helps to someone, cheers
2Make sure that your camera is recognized, I would suggest something like cheese (see e.g. here).
When you have made sure that it works in general, some applications will probably still have issues and will need a workaround (e.g. skype). The general idea is to force loading of an additional compatibility library, see e.g. this howto or this answer.
1Ekiga typically can see cameras when most other applications can't (including Cheese); however if the kernel can't see it, no userland application can see it.
Ekiga isn't installed by default anymore but it's a package install away.
