webcam problem with skype on linux

I am runing ubuntu 9.10 and the latest version of skype but I have problem with webcam. When I trie the webcam with cheese it works fine but when I try to use the web on skype , skype crashes. can any body help me

Skype cannot directly interact with video4linux. You need to load an extra library (v4l1compat.so) for the compatibility layer:

# LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

Maybe you need to adjust the library path for your setup.

To make this permanent just add this variable to /usr/bin/skype: add

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so; export LD_PRELOAD

e.g. on the 2nd line there.

Maybe you also want to report this in your distribution's bugtracker.

The question is old but the problem still exists. As honk says, setting LD_PRELOAD to the v4l1compat.so library works.

On my 64-bit ubuntu 12.04, this worked:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

I have a 32 bit skype, so the library should match that.

I want to launch skype with a panel icon. I put this in the command field:

bash -c "LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype"

This avoids creating a separate script file. Without bash however, it does not work.