The latter is still mostly copying and pasting too FYI, along with reading error messages that generally tell you exactly what’s wrong.

Also, NixOS, is not FHS-compliant, so regular Linux binaries will not run without pagching or running it through a wrapper. AppImages work, but needs appimage-run. Flatpaks work fine as well.

I would only recommend NixOS if the concept of everything being inside of a configuration file that you can copy between machines sounds intriguing to you; otherwise, if you still want ultimate control over everything and want to use a Terminal, Arch. If you just want something that works without having to worry about configuration or copying Terminal commands, I’d go with Pop OS or Linux Mint Debian Edition.