Go Ethereum, the official Go implementation of the Ethereum protocol, is available as the go-ethereum package:

$ yay -S go-ethereum 

Create an account with:

$ geth account new

The client can be started with geth, and it will proceed to download several gigabytes of blockchain data. This will take a very long time. This time can be shortened with:

 $ geth --syncmode full --cache=1024 

Higher cache values appear to speed up the process more.

Optionally, start the client with geth console to get a JavaScript console for more meaningful interaction. This console can then be attached-to from another terminal or remotely with geth attach [hostname:port defaults to localhost].

To check balances in the console or attach modes, use:

$ web3.fromWei(eth.getBalance(eth.coinbase), "ether")

To start CPU mining, use:

$ geth --mine 

This is far less efficient than GPU mining, and ethereum.org does not recommend it.