While it was possible to use USB webcams within vmware-server 1.x, the 2.0 version only detects them as audio devices. As an example a plugged in Logitech Quickcam shows up as "Logitech Audio Device" in the virtual machine. Even these audio devices are unusable as I am getting the following error when I try to connect them: Remote USB device error: Remote device disconnected: an error occured while sending data. I guess the problem is that the cameras have no audio output and thus sending data would not work (Proper USB handling in Vmware would simply ignore the missing audio output instead of complaining, so I consider this as a bug too). I made sure that no other application was using the cameras and I even removed the associated kernel-modules for a test - did not work.
I tested this on several Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy" installations with several webcams (Logitech, Philips): Always the same result, so I think this is a bug.
Does anybody has similar problems or a solution for this?