I use Skype almost every day, with webcam, sound and text chat. I am in
Toronto, my wife is on an extended visit to China.

I have two computers available, each with similar webcams. One is six years
old, and Skype fails on it, in a hard crash. The other was new this summer,
with an AMD Phenom II X2 processor. If I run system monitor when I am
videoconferencing with Skype, it shows that both CPUs are used more than 50%.
That makes me believe Skype will only work for videoconferencing when it is on a
modern, powerful system. It works very well for me.

My Chinese webcam cost almost $10. I'm running 64-bit Linux Mint Gloria (based
on Jaunty) on the Phenom II. (And 32-bit Karmic on the old machine.)