I've got an HP Envy with the new Synaptics Clickpad - the device is not supported out of the box by Ubuntu, so I downloaded this patch (https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/67335/), applied it to synaptics.c in the linux kernel source, rebuilt the kernel and booted from it. Nothing changed. I'm new to Linux and don't know much about driver configuration; how can I check that the newly-produced synaptics.o file is actually being used somewhere?

Or if it is obvious, what step did I leave out?

Separately, I tried following the instructions in this thread: http://georgia.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8989185&postcount=11

There, someone posted the patch along with a Makefile and instructions for installation. When I followed those, my mouse stopped working altogether. Not desirable, but at least I know it had some effect.

The Makefile is posted below; I get the gist of what it's doing, but don't have enough knowledge to figure out why it would cause the device to stop responding entirely.

obj-m := psmouse.o

psmouse-objs := psmouse-base.o synaptics.o

psmouse-$(CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ALPS)        += alps.o
psmouse-$(CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_ELANTECH)    += elantech.o
psmouse-$(CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_OLPC)        += hgpk.o
psmouse-$(CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_LOGIPS2PP)   += logips2pp.o
psmouse-$(CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_LIFEBOOK)    += lifebook.o
psmouse-$(CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_TRACKPOINT)  += trackpoint.o
psmouse-$(CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2_TOUCHKIT)    += touchkit_ps2.o

KDIR := /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
PWD := $(shell pwd)
default:
    $(MAKE) -C $(KDIR) SUBDIRS=$(PWD) modules

install: 
    @cp psmouse.ko /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/