Try NixOS with the new redesigned command line. It's much simpler. No idea why this is not getting advertised more widely, as it's been worked on for a few years already: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779

For example, opening a temporary shell with, say, GIMP, is as simple as: nix run nixpkgs.gimp

If you want to check what packages are available for GIMP, because you are not sure what to run: nix search gimp

I tend to forget very convoluted commands, and I find the new nix much simpler than pacman or apt.

Documentation has also matured a lot, see: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Resources