Status update: have been using NixOS for over a year now, has been quite good, though took quite a while to get used to.

Also tried Guix -- a bit more to my liking (based on pieces of NixOS), but still has a ways to go.

Tried Manjaro again (thanks to phitsc) -- the brief experience I had with the Fluxbox 15.10 edition this time has been nice so far.

Wondering whether to try out Qubes -- this appears to be a focused effort to carry out an idea of isolating execution of programs (perhaps among other things).  Anyone else try this already?

Just tried out qemu-launcher:

  https://screenshots.debian.net/screenshots/q/qemu-launcher/14020_large.png

Part of what it does is provide a GUI for creating / editing sets of information for launching the qemu emulator.

Was thinking that a general GUI tool to do this sort of thing for any command line program (i.e. rather than specifically just for one program) could be handy.

Perhaps one could provide (for each supported command line program) a template describing options, corresponding GUI layout, and how what's specified gets translated into command line parameters.  A motivated user might provide / share their own templates.

IIUC, some of this is done by Drag and Drop Robot -- the creating / editing sets of information part at least.

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Insert usual comment about if suitable thing doesn't exist already :)