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.