Do you need to "live without multitouch gestures"? I don't have a macbook, so I have never tested it, but the Archlinux wiki speaks of two drivers xf86-input-multitouch and a fork xf86-input-mtrack
I rely on it heavily for window management and navigation, and the Linux community is sorely lacking in this department atm.
easystroke-mt - Use mouse and screen multitouch gestures to initiate commands and hotkeys.
touchegg - Multitouch gesture recognizer
Obviously I can't tell how well those work and whether there are better projects...