OK, so you're a windows user, and someone says the above to you. How do you do it? You can't unless you've already installed a separate program (putty or something to even be able to ssh to another box). If you don't have it, then it's off to google to find a program to provide ssh capabilities. Then you have to download it, install it, and figure out how to use it. With linux it would be really unusual not to have the ssh command already installed. Either way, however you get there, you'll be sitting at a command prompt on the remote box, and you'd have to know how to do what it is you've been asked to do.
Another scenerio... You need to copy a file from your home directory on box Able to the box you're on. From windows, you're going to have to know how to map directories, and a whole lot of other stuff. In linux, you can do it with a simple command "scp able:file.txt .". Even better, let's say you need to move a file from Able to Baker, but you're on Charlie. How would you do that with windows? It's not something that grandma would be able to do on windows, yet it is somehow supposed to be so magically easy that gramma can do it with Linux. (from Charlie, depending upon your version of ssh, you should be able to "scp able:file.txt baker:."
And? I don't see a problem with having some functionality in other programs/packages.
Granted, you can go overboard and ship out a really bare-bones OS.
Another scenerio... You need to copy a file from your home directory on box Able to the box you're on. From windows, you're going to have to know how to map directories, and a whole lot of other stuff.
Mapping directories is fairly easy in Windows… I haven't had to use it in a few years though.
In linux, you can do it with a simple command "scp able:file.txt .". Even better, let's say you need to move a file from Able to Baker, but you're on Charlie. How would you do that with windows? It's not something that grandma would be able to do on windows, yet it is somehow supposed to be so magically easy that gramma can do it with Linux. (from Charlie, depending upon your version of ssh, you should be able to "scp able:file.txt baker:."
Depends on your set-up w/ Windows; I used to have several desktops LANed together — doing the operation above is easy: open the folder on Able, open a folder on Baker, drag what you want from Able's folder to Bakers. Done.