Fixing your Logitech WebCam on Ubuntu 9.04

Hello guys,

If you are using skype and a Logitech webcam (ID 046d:08af) on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), you must have noticed this.
When you open skype, and go to options > video devices and 'test' your camera, you see some ugly looking green coloured lines all over. When you do a video chat, the other person hears a lot of 'noise' instead of your voice.

Before the solution, how do u check the ID of your webcam?
Just type in:
lsusb | grep QuickCam

And now, here's a quick solution to the problem:
1. Shut Down Skype
2. Make a new file in /usr/local/bin:

sudo vim /usr/local/bin/skype

3. Enter the following lines (INSERT):

#!/bin/sh
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

and close the file (ESC :wq).
4. Change file permissions:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype

5. Start skype and video should work now.. :)

Thanks to the gentleman here who posted this solution!

-Dhaval

Disabling Update notifier popup in ubuntu

Folks who use Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) might be bugged by a particularly irritating feature: as soon as you log in, the update-notifier pops in and asks you to upgrade - and keeps popping in forever at regular intervals! Some (or most) people get irritated when they see a pop-up anywhere while they are working..

Here's how you disable this annoying pop-up:
1. Open the terminal
2. Type the following command:
gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

- If, for some reason, you want to revert back, you can issue the same command and type 'true' instead of false.

Source: click here (this one also gives a GUI based method)