It was about two years ago that I last tried to install my web camera. It was in the Sarge “era” and my Linux knowledge was limited that time, so I got lost in the driver installation procedure and all the other technicalities.
My knowledge of this things didn’t improve much from that time, but Debian did. After installing Etch I tried again and the process couldn’t be simpler.
I knew before, that i should first install windows and then Linux, but windows tends to have an annoying have-to-reinstall-to-fix-a-problem “feature”.
Luckily the solution is simple. All you need is a live CD distribution with which you boot into your computer and reinstall GRUB (probably also Lilo – I don’t know because I don’t use it). I use System Rescue CD. It works with other LiveCD as well, but System Rescue CD was made for exactly this (kind of) job. It is a command line distro.