So the Archwiki has most of the must have info. These are just my notes on what I'm doing to keep my new linux laptop happy!
Copying system.conf to /etc/systemd or setting RuntimeWatchdogSec to a value should have systemd enable the hardware watchdog.
Ugh, buy a mouse.
If you're stuck with the trackpad, the synclient.sh can run on X startup. Its ssets the trackpad to some more sensible defaults. Still a bit of a challenge and I end up reaching for a mouse most of the time.
yaourt -S zramswap; systemctl enable zramswap; systemctl start zramswap This will add zram compressed memory to the system as swap.
Either mount ext4 with discard, or systemctl enable fstrim.timer which will periodically run fstrim to clean up the HD.
At a minimum, we want to set the PCM to be the default device (card 1). The asoundrc will do that. Adding the alsa.conf to /etc/modprobe.d/ should in theory enable the internal microphone.