What does the output of dmesg say, in particular anything with "PS/2"
or serio mentioned?
The only line that mentions 'serio' is the one that loads the keyboard controller, and doesn't look relevant. The output of 'dmesg | grep PS/2' looks a little more interesting:
PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303,PNP0f0e] at 0x60,0x64 irq 1,12 mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
That might be it, since I have no PS/2 ports (although it probably doesn't prove anything: maybe it can gain PS/2 ports with a docking station or something and needs a PS/2 controller for that).
I had a feeling that some modern machines put the pointing device on
the usb bus and not the ps2 serial one.
does lsusb show anything that might be the touchpad ?
With my [external] USB mouse unplugged, lsusb looks like:
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
I think those are the ports themselves, or something.
I hope that gives someone some ideas: thanks for the help. Matthew