I've connected an Apple Magic Trackpad (external bluetooth trackpad that sits on your desk) to an ubuntu machine and it's wonderful. There are still some software things to solve to get the acceleration perfect and things like scrolling working, but having trackpad hardware that isn't trash goes a really long way.
I tried doing this with a Thinkpad but the BT connection would cut out periodically and I gave up. Did you have to do anything special to get it working?