Huh. I'm a Linux-using, liberal-arts CS major and I had no idea that this was even a thing.

I suspect that a large part of this trend is pragmatism vs idealism. From what I hear of days gone by, using *nix wasn't ever really a pragmatic decision. It may suck to be boxed into a GUI, but an engineer might be more inclined to make the compromise and get the job done than a liberal arts major.