The touchpad works well. There is a configuration program called tpconfig that allows its behavior to be modified. As of release 3.1, tpconfig works even while X or gpm is running, provided you modify your kernel with this patch:

I've been exchanging email with Alan Cox regarding the integration of the patch into a future 2.2 kernel. He's rejected the exclusive-access portion of the patch entirely, and has convinced me that he's right to do so. It will be necessary to convince the XFree86 maintainers to extend the X protocol to provide a mechanism to configure the mouse. I expect that this will take a long time to accomplish, so I plan to maintain the patch until then.

He seems willing to accept the remainder of the patch (a bug fix to prevent mouse-configuration programs from writing to the device too quickly), but after a brief moment in the 2.4.1ac series it was pulled. Alan hasn't responded to my follow-up email so I don't know what the current status is.