I was at the #Educause Annual Conference back in the early 2010s running SLED11 with the cube enabled. I was spinning away when the person next to me asked what it was and what OS I was running. I replied, "Linux" he said, "oh, that's for you technical types."
Later, same scenario (different person), but when I replied, "this is is Windows Longhorn, the pre-release of Vista," the person was so impressed with Microsoft's innovation.
I can't help but roll my eyes when Linux is labelled as "technical" when all I do all day is click on icons and pull down menus. It was slightly more complicated a decade or two ago, but then Windows was quite broken too at the time.
(ok, I do open a terminal now and then to check on stuff, but I could just use YaST. And I don't really have to check on stuff, as it's just working as intended anyway)
@AnUnusualRelic completely agree--and note, I was spinning the cube, i.e., desktop, to navigate to files, not cd'ing through directories.
You're point about GUIs is also spot on and reflects most users these days. I wonder why those "technical" users who use a Mac aren't deemed "content developers" (writers, designers) or "end users" even though they may use the MacOS terminal?