SUMMARY It should show available firmware updates that are recommended/good to install Currently one has to use the command fwupdmgr update to do so. See https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/ Maybe there are also some additional ways to update more firmware that fwupdmgr can't yet do. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. On Debian11 try to update firmware with Apper OBSERVED RESULT No firmware updates are shown despite updates being available according to fwupdmgr update EXPECTED RESULT Apper should display these updates in the Updates or have a button to separately check for firmware updates. Security could be an issue so integrity of these updates should be ensured in a way at least as good as packages in the Debian repos. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: Debian 11 KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.78.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Apper could show these updates if fwupd is installed. If it is not installed, there could be texts that say "Please install fwupd to also search for available firmware updates". Moreover, this would benefit from fwupd being installed by default on Debian/KDE and I asked about that here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1005134
The issue now is: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1010490 The vulnerability remains open.
This project is unfortunately no longer maintained. If a new maintainer wants to step up and take care, the project is archived here: https://invent.kde.org/system/apper You can just clone it in your private namespace on invent.kde.org and if you have started to work on it and fixed/implemented something get it reviewed and the project unarchived. Sorry for the inconveniences.