I got this working with the Xorg-7.4 extension and an alps touchpad/pointing stick combo.
Several versions ago of xorg/synaptics, the default settings were basically unusable on an alps touchpad, but they seem quite reasonable now.
Here's an example of the relevant sections of xorg.conf that worked for me: Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
# InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Alps Touchpad" "AlwaysCore"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
#Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "Mouse0"
# Driver "mouse"
# Option "Protocol" "auto"
# Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
#EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Alps Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "SHMConfig" "true"
EndSection
the lines starting with "#" indicate what was changed from the standard mouse setup I used previously.
Once xorg starts, entering "synclient -l" in a terminal window will bring up a list of the many settings that can be used in xorg.conf to alter the touchpad behaviour.