If you're using Ubuntu, I have found that it can support the Logitech Orbit AF camera quite well, once you have the proper drivers installed and compiled. It is a fairly high-res web camera, and I was getting fairly good frame rates (I have never had good luck with Linux and web cameras; the Orbit AF seems like a fluke).
Another option that I have found to work well is to use a high-resolution IP camera as the video source. They tend to offer simple streaming feeds via a standard HTTP interface, usually MJPEG, sometimes something without artifacting.
Depending on your needs and ultimate end-use, though, you might consider such a system using a web-cam (whatever your application) to be a "beta testing" system; for serious work once you get things going on the beta-platform, look in firewire cameras (although maybe the next version of USB will be better?).