The touchpad and that quirky pointing stick between the G, H, B, and N work as a basic mouse, when you follow the basic instructions outlined in the section Graphics. Read on, if you want to get the scroll wheel emulation, mouse gestures and so on running.

Your kernel (2.6.11 or better) must have support for the input device event interface compiled in:

Device drivers  --->
    Input device support  --->
    <*> Event interface

Check /proc/bus/input/devices for all input devices recognized. For each one there should be a device node in /dev/input.

Now make sure that the variable INPUT_DEVICES in /etc/make.conf contains at least "keyboard mouse evdev synaptics":

VIDEO_CARDS="intel"
INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev synaptics"

Check whether you have to recompile your X server:

# emerge --update --newuse xorg-server

The above should automatically emerge the X11 driver synaptics. You can also force a check on that:

# emerge --update xf86-input-synaptics