> Finding a file that got put in a weird place,

It's no different to Windows in that way.

> plugging in USB devices,

That it more likely to just work in Linux than Windows. The latter will probably need a special driver.

> understanding what version of an application to install

Most window managers provide software installers / managers.

> permissions,

A normal desktop user doesn't look at permissions.

> weird issues after updates,

Well, yes. Sadly the solution is the same for both Windows and Linux - wipe and re-install. It's a regular occurrence with Windows, sadly.

We had a guy bring in his Linux laptop to a LUG because it was behaving badly. Turned out he had run out of disk space. He could have fixed it himself, had he realised. But the surprising thing was - it was 15 years old, and never had an issue up until then. I've never had a Windows machine someone was using regularly last that long. App churn causes everything to degrade, NTFS fragments something horrid, it slows down to being unusable. You eventually wipe it and restart.

To be clear, I wasn't arguing that a user is less likely to run into issues on Windows (or Mac). The bigger issue is that when they invariably run into an issue it's significantly easier to get the help they need to return their computer to a working state. Between their computer manufacturer, their university/company IT department, friends, relatives, blogs, books, senior citizen tech-support groups, etc there are simply more resources available, and especially more resources that are tailored to a less technical audience.