[tlug] Digital Camera Choices: Canon IXY 320 ?

[Tim <tim@example.com>]

Hello TLUG,


Hoping to get some info here.
I am about to buy a Digital camera as a Birthday present.

Her set up:
   Japanese Windows2000 notebook
My set-up:
   Dual boot: SuSE 8.0 Pro / Win98 English

Can someone confirm / correct:
  I have found the Canon IXY 320 in Japan which seems to stick to most
standards and store pictures on CF cards which I should be able to
access as JPG files on my Linux system, right?

  For the USB downloading, she will need Windows software.  I think
that on my Linux system, I can use the gphoto2 package found through a
google search on the issue.

I will be going to San Fransisco for work soon, and was thinking of
getting the USA version of the same camera.  Does anyone know if
buying the Japanese Canon IXY 320 or the USA Canon Powershot S230
makes any difference depending on the language of the operating
system?

Any other linux compatible cameras to be recomended instead?  I do not
like the idea of requiring software to retrive the pictures, so native
storage as JPG or PNG is a bonus as it is more likely to work across
OSes, languages and friend's machines.

Thanks!
Tim