The trackpad on my ASUS laptop doesn't work after I press off and then on. Before I press off the first time it works well, afterwards it doesn't work even though the light indicator is on. This problem has happened to me since Ubuntu 10.04/Linux Mint 9/and now 10.10, it works fine on Win7, but I don't really want to boot there ;).
2 Answers
it is indeed a bug as discussed here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/546503
this is not a cure for the bug, but get your trackpad running again, run:
gconftool --type bool --set /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled true