I did in fact say that in the article. (I wrote the story at the top of this post.)
Like you, I personally nuke Windows immediately and run fwupd from Linux... but then... I'm lucky I get to choose my own laptops. And I only buy those whose manufacturers support fwupd. It's a growing number, but I don't think it's a majority...? I'm not sure, I would be happy if anyone had hard data here.
>those updates might not be available under Linux
Just because FWUPD exists, doesn't mean that FWUPD has updates for all laptops or HW devices in your laptop. All HW manufacturers ship Windows drivers and FW updates for Windows, but not all push their updates to fwupd as well. That's why you should use Windows to update everything first especially if you don't know if your devices are supported by fwupd.
Maybe you're buying used and you can get a great deal that just has that one drawback.
Too bad many that can don't. There's no way for the little players to achieve economies of scale of the big players if folks keep buying Windows hardware from the big players.
And unless you're a GNU/Nerd, most people have better uses for their time than scouring through the web to find out if fwupd works for the HW when they go shopping for a new laptop. Most normal people just buy a laptop that fits them best and that's it.
After all, why would they need to do any extra research for this? Isn't the whole internet and HN preaching that the year of the Linux is here and that it "just works(TM)"? Maybe not without caveats.
If you keep buying Windows hardware and slapping Linux on it, you'll have to be the systems integration team all by yourself. Without documentation of the hardware, or support.
It's a mug's game. Don't play it. Buy Linux hardware, with support.
And many people in many markets don't have easy access to buying linux specific laptops. A HP, Dell or Lenovo is much easier to find around the world, and most importantly, easier to get service for it when it breaks versus boutique Linux laptop makers like Slimbook, System76, Framework, etc.
Or you buy Linux hardware with support.
Perhaps you're thinking of responses to the perennial genre of, "I slapped Linux on my Windows box, and it was terrible, so Linux sucks!" posts?
Also, with that mentality, we would never extend Linux support to new hardware.
It doesn't sound as good as a fully supported option. It sounds a lot like commodity Windows hardware.
> Also, with that mentality, we would never extend Linux support to new hardware.
No, hobbyists will still do it (see e.g. Asahi)
If folks keep giving their money to Windows hardware companies instead of Linux ones, they should not be surprised if the range if Linux-supporting hardware remains smaller. Like if you could just slap OSX on some random Windows PC M1 and such would never have come about.
We actually have options as Linux users these days. It's a shame folks insist on wasting the opportunity.
If you did your research and made sure to buy linux supported hardware, then good for you mate, you're free to do whatever you want now, but for us with less linux friendly hardware or unknown to the user, my point still stands, you should first update everything under windows (including usb-c/thunderbolt docking station FW) to ensure a good linux experience later.
[0] https://fwupd.org/ [1] http://rufus.ie/
System76 supports LVFS and Framework has started using it for its latest beta firmware updates. (for a full list of vendors: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/ )