My inexpensive HP webcam (no model number on the camera) works in Ubuntu. It
looks like an eyeball and clips onto the monitor. I paid $10 for it. Quality
is okay for what I use it for.

I have a ten year old LG (it was the cheapest model available then)
that worked fine in 9.10. nothing tricky to it. Also, the built-in
web cam on my toshiba L505 latop (2010 yr model) worked out of the box
with 9.10. For the sound routing, look under your system ->
preferences -> sound. I think there is a tab on that to select which
output line.

Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at Walmart and see what's available today
in web cams.

As for the sound, I've been all thru the sound settings in prefs and the only
output available is the ATI HDMI. Don't know what happened to the on-board sound
output option. No big deal but very strange.

I'll take a look at Walmart and see what's available today
in web cams.

As for the sound, I've been all thru the sound settings in prefs and the only
output available is the ATI HDMI. Don't know what happened to the on-board sound
output option. No big deal but very strange.

Most web cams will work and Amazon has lots of them with a built in mic
for real good deal prices.

I have a Logitech but most likely any USB camera will work,

Lots of cameras *will not work.*" Then again, I have a webcam which is not
supported in any current version of Windows or Linux.

The camera which works cost $10 when I bought it in China. It's a Z-Star zc0303.
If you plug in an USB webcam and use the command lsusb, it should identify the
webcam whether it works or not.

Ubuntu 10.10 has an odd issue with many webcams. You have to install the driver
with any kernel upgrade.

Here I use a 12 years old(USB) Philips webcam(currently with Lubuntu 10.4).
If you want to find out whether any webcam works with Ubuntu ,download
Cheese from the repository and run the app with the webcam plugged in before
Ubuntu is started up.
If you see a pic with Cheese the webcam will definitely work with Skype.

I ended up buying a Logitech cam. Hooked it up and, bang,
worked right out of the box. Nothing to install, nothing to set up.

and people that don't know about this wonder why we are so
enthusiastic about Ubuntu...

i use a playstation 2 webcam with ubuntu 10.10

I've found that most hardware is just plug-and-go with Ubuntu but the
ones that don't work immediately can take some work getting them to be
recognized / usable, and there are some that plain refuse to work no
matter what you do !! Thankfully the ones that aren't Ubuntu friendly
are few but not a lot of consolation if you've got one of these and
faced with replacing a totally serviceable peripheral because it's not
compatible with the OS you want to use.

Then again - there was a lot of that happened when WinXP launched so
what's new there

You are absolutely right. (K)ubuntu is at least as good in this respect as
the Redmond products.