Okay, so maybe I'm a glutton for punishment or just dumb. But I decided I didn't like the Windows installation after all. Mainly because I didn't feel like dealing with the "bonus" software and the friendly reminders to register for software I haven't used in four years. Also, I think trying to run Ubuntu in a VM was a little too much to ask for the HP. Long story short, I reinstalled Ubuntu 12.04 and made a promise to myself that I wouldn't try to install (or uninstall) any packages related to the USB.
Side note: I could have installed an earlier version of Eclipse using apt-get, but I wanted to go with the Kepler edition, so I downloaded the tarball instead. After installing the Android SDK, I was surprised to find that adb wasn't working. I kept getting file not found errors, even though I could clearly see it was there. Problem was I didn't have 32-bit executable support installed yet. Ran apt-get intall ia32-libs, which installed a whole bunch of crap. But this did, in fact, solve the problem.
Back to business. At first glance it doesn't look like I'll be able to control the camera at the level I want, at least from the USB. Here's what I get from the command line:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 090c:137b Silicon Motion, Inc. - Taiwan (formerly Feiya Technology Corp.) 
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 046d:c52f Logitech, Inc. Wireless Mouse M305
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 04e8:1306 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd 
seans@snowpack:~$ sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/devices

...

T:  Bus=02 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  4 Spd=480  MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=04e8 ProdID=1306 Rev= 0.00
S:  Manufacturer=SAMSUNG  
S:  Product=Samsung Digital Camera 
S:  SerialNumber=E00000000002 
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr=  0mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=05 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage
E:  Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=82(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms

...

(note: I removed all the extra crap related to the host controllers and USB mouse). A more experienced eye might see something else. But what I see is that I'll only be able to access files through USB.  I need to do a little research to see exactly what each term means, but I believe "T" designates a device, either root hub or hardware device, "D" designates the USB version, number of available configurations and a few other things I don't know.  I get the vendor number and product ID, but I don't understand "Rev" (revision?  if so, why zero?).  "S" must designate some generic string descriptor.  I don't believe the serial number that's given there.  "C" seems to designate the start of a specific configuration, not sure what the asterisk is for.  "#Ifs is the number of sub-configurations, in this case there's just the one.  "I" indicates the sub-configuration and "E" are endpoints.  This allows one input (I) and one output (O) bulk endpoint, designed for transferring large amounts of data.  Seems like this device is configured at "full speed" (480 MBps).<p>

 I did some searching on the interwebs and found that, at least for other digital cameras, any "hacking" of the firmware had to be done via memory chip. I can see how this might work for this camera, since it does seem to do some check of the SD chip when turning it on. As of now there's no firmware provided for this particular model, but I'll keep my eyes peeled.