I’m running Linux Mint (14/15) on a Macbook and while (for mind-boggling reasons) all is well when running the system live from an memory stick once I install the OS and set up the mouse to be left-handed the touchpad becomes unusable because it is switced to left-handed as well (so tab-click becomes secondary-click which is obviously bullshit). After a lot of unsuccessful fiddling with synclient I recently found a way to solve this problem for Cinnamon/Gnome.
Install/open dconfig-editor (there’s also the gconfig-editor and maybe another one but these don’t have the entry we need)
Search (Ctrl+f) for touchpad and change the value of left-handed to right.
Restart the session and enjoy!