Almost all of my friends like Linkin Park... Anyone who doesn't listens to something else that's not even decent. I only know personally one person that listens to anything good.
The way I see it, Linkin Park is easy to listen to because it's so simple that it makes me wonder why they even bother writing anything down, and then they throw in all these synthy effects to try to cover it up. As a result, it's very little to keep track of, but the effects stop it from being boring to the normal listener until they realize that all of their stuff is practically the same song.
I listened to them before I got into metal... But it was only because it was the best thing that had been presented to me at the time. All the death metal I ever knew was crappy American bands. I did like Blind Guardian though.