People who don't use Linux rarely think about people who do use Linux.

No, but if you want us all to pretend they do, we will.

Any esoteric computer use to a layman can be misconstrued as hacking. Even hacking. ;)

Yes. Because they don't have any familiarity with the way Linux desktops look and work, it all looks very much like the technology depicted in movies/shows/games that is very frequently a tool of a "hackerman" type character. That's even more true when a terminal enters play.

They secretly suspect you’re up to no good just because you don’t cry and rend your mouse in frustration.

I have been using linux for over 20 years and mostly don't think about it. Occasionally I will have someone around who does not know much about it when I do and apt upgrade and I get a "what the hell did you do?"

No, but they do tend to assume you will provide tech support. For windows.

my daughter calls my terminal my code, no matter how much I tell her its just prompt for commands

I do believe some are - like those doing Linux from scratch without reading while using awk, sed and friends to edit configs

I figure when someone first adopts Linux they are like Abby and McGee double teaming a single keyboard. As they use Linux more they mature into the Lone Gunman from X-Files.

@Xirup generally just weird. They just look at it and see it so familiar yet so weird. However, if you tell them it's Linux and you even open the terminal once...

Also, it doesn't help the fact that movies use it as a prop for hackers, so people can look at it and be wow, just like in that movie I saw. What are you hacking today?

I use hollywood so yes

Yes, simply using the command line is often considered hacking by people who don't care enough to know better.

Fun fact, the terminal based system monitor btop has been used in movies to show "hacking" in action.