Today I tried the same with my Ubuntu 10.04 installation and I encountered a few problems. This is how I got my webcam working with Skype:

• Check if your web cam is working in general. The program Cheese is quite suitable for this task.
• Test if Skype works with you cam. Open the options dialogue, go to “Video” and click test. If you see yourself, everything is fine
• Otherwise create a shell script with the following content:
  1. #!/bin/bash
  2. LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so  /usr/bin/skype

  This script forces Skype to use the Video4Linux drivers instead of the native ones.

• If you got this error like this:
  

  X Error, request 132, minor 18, error code 8 BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)

  Modify you script this way:

  1. #!/bin/bash
  2. export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 skype
  3. LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so  /usr/bin/skype
• Whenever you start Skype and want to use your web cam use this script to start Skype.

P.S.: If you are on a 64bit system you probably need to do this:

Today I found a really good working plug-in for Pidgin which allows you to use the most Skype features directly from Pidgin: http://code.google.com/p/skype4pidgin/

You still need Skype to be running, but you got all you contacts in you Pidgin list. If you make a call the standard Skype dialog appears, all message communication is done via the usual Pidgin conversation windows.

Skype 4 Pidgin

Skype 4 Pidgin