to check what is the make of touch pad on your laptop try :

$dmesg |grep input

this will give you all the input devices on your machine ..

So in linux kernel there is a generic touch pad or I would rather call it mouse driver which enables the basic mouse functionality like movement of cursor with the touch pad but it does not support the features like multi touch pinch to zoom or side scroll or tap to click..
What I mean to say is , if there is no touchpad driver for the given architecture of touch pad , it is detected as a basic PS/2 mouse..
In order to use the full functionality of touchpad a relevant driver should be included or has to be written , which could be a tough job as often Vendors don’t release the architecture of their devices in OpenSource..
Like Dell Uses Alps touchpad and there is no driver for it in linux kernel < 3.3 hence it just works as basic mouse like tap to select doesn't work and have to use the buttons for left/right click operation..