well....after some work I can download files and get thumbnails out of my wife's brandnew Canon Eos 300D (normal) with <photo2 2.1.4, libphoto2 2.1.4 ,, ,, -port 0.5.1> and an < exif leb/dev> on sarge.
thanks to you all who helped me to get this thing going! steef groningen netherlands