Fix Google Video/Chat/Hangout in Ubuntu Based Systems With Integrated Webcams

This is going to be for a very select group of people, but they’ll be thankful as hell.  I’ve been searching for this answer for the last two weeks.

My tech specifications:  Ubuntu 10.04, stripped down with an Openbox WM.  Dell, with integrated webcam and audio.

Google Voice/Chat/Video/Hangouts all stopped working for me.  Other video – Skype, for example – worked just fine.  No idea what happened, or even particularly when it happened, since I don’t use the service all the time.  Happened no matter what browser I was using, no matter where, what firewalls (or lack thereof) were up….
The plugin would install (because I stripped it out and put it back in half-a-dozen times) and there’d be a black square with no video or sound when I went to verify my settings.

Turns out it wasn’t me.  (Note:  If it’s working, don’t “fix” it!)

It’s a known problem with version 3.10 (which is “current” as of this writing) of the plugin.    After finally stumbling across this thread I found the download links for version 3.7. 

Ubuntu 64-bit
https://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb/pool/main/g/google-talkplugin/google-talkplugin_3.7.1.0-1_amd64.deb

Ubuntu 32-bit
https://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb/pool/main/g/google-talkplugin/google-talkplugin_3.7.1.0-1_i386.deb


EDIT 7 Feb 2013:  The above download links no longer work.   There is a copy of each deb (both 32 and 64 bit)  at https://www.box.com/s/yn3ht0925yvxqslqp4h8

I uninstalled 3.10, then downloaded the .deb package, installed it, and BOOM.  Good to go again.

See?