Can you fire up a terminal, plug in the camera and let us know the
output of the two commands

lsusb (lists all attached usb devices)
dmesg | tail (prints kernel messages)

OK you need to know doing anything to do with CLI befuddles me totally.
But I typed in those commands you suggested and hit enter.
I tried Iusb and iusb and got "command not found"

Then for dmesg I got this VAST list of stuff (I had been surfing for two hours)
so I don't know what to look for on this.
Down at the bottom of this list I saw one line
Linux video capture interface V2.00
What Am I looking for?

First off, it's lsusb, not iusb (that's an 'el' not an 'eye' :-) ).

Second, for the dmesg, the "| tail" part should restrict output to just
the last ten messages - which is why I asked you to plug the camera in
just before running the command. If you really are getting a lot of
info, try

dmesg | tail > dmesglog.txt

which will put all the output in a file called dmesglog.txt in whichever
directory you run the command from, then paste the contents of that file
on pastebin.com (it's pretty straightforward, you should find it fairly
easy :-) ) and post the url, so we can have a look at it.

That message you're getting looks promising, though. It indicates that
the kernel is at least seeing the camera when you plug it in.

I need a tip for using CLI first.
dmesg followed a vertical line?, can't see that on my keyboard? tail >
dmesglog.txt
Sorry I wasn't kidding when I said CLI befuddles me

The "|" is made with Shift + "\" key. I used it to join MS-DOS commands years
ago, too. It's above the backslash key.

OK I think I have the result from the dmesg | tail command now

abc@abc-desktop:~$ dmesg | tail
[ 528.432013] usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[ 528.599092] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 528.704900] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 528.728702] gspca: main v2.7.0 registered
[ 528.731733] gspca: probing 04a5:3003
[ 528.751026] gspca: probe ok
[ 528.751042] gspca: probing 04a5:3003
[ 528.751066] usbcore: registered new interface driver sunplus
[ 528.751069] sunplus: registered
[ 528.831652] gspca: disconnect complete
abc@abc-desktop:~$

lsusb command yielded-
bus 004 device 003: ID04a5 : 3003 acer peripherals inc. (now benq corp.) Benq
web cam

did you have the camera plugged in when you ran the lsusb command?
Also, in your other email you were asking about the "|" key. Its usualy
right above the enter key, and sometimes looks like two smaller vertical
lines right on top of each other. You typically get it by pressing shift
then the forward slash (i.e., "\"), assuming you are on standard
international english keyboard layout.

Yes, just before I did the lsusb command I plugged in the camera.

Just a quick note: that command was "lsub"... With an L (lowercase) as
the first letter.

This may be one reason for the problems:

http://www.gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php

http://gphoto.sourceforge.net/

If you want to try it, gphoto is in Synaptic, plus other camera tools. KDE has
one, too.

The last time I used camera tools was on Mint Linux and I added digital camera
tools, t think.

I think he was referring to LUSB, but type it in lower case. But to use it
you'll need to install a dev library file, and I couldn't run it either from my
Ubuntu 10.10 computer.

I think I have gphoto installed though I'm not seeing it on my list of
applications.
I plugged the camera in after gphoto was downloaded but still no response.
I don't know if this tells you anything but I saw on another forum that somebody
else was having the same problem Benq1300 won't work with 10.04. Nobody knew how
to fix it.
Why would this camera work with Ubuntu 7.10 but not with Ubuntu 10.04?

Seems that even Windows users found the software for this camera was
flaky Couldn't tell from the reviews I read if it has a memory
card or if it's all on-board - if it does have a memory card then the
way round the problem is to use a card reader instead of plugging the
camera itself into the PC.

As for why the latest Ubuntu doesn't like this camera - OS's develop
and in doing so the can break compatibility with hardware. Usually not
something that Linux in general has a huge problem with but it does
happen. In the same way that some models of one make of peripheral
will prove to be more troublesome than others in Linux, a lot depends
on how the firmware is written !!

Just a thought, on my panasonic camera, there is a setting for what I
want the camera to do when connected via usb to a computer. I had to
pick enter usb mode in the camera in order for anything to happen. Does
your camera have a setting like this? Maybe it has been changed
accidental. A long shot I know.

I still have my old PC (ubuntu7.10) and I just plugged the camera into it to
test your theory and it works just the same as it always has.
I don't actually know if my camera has a USB setting like you mentioned. I
obtained this camera (used) years ago and it came without instruction booklet.