The article utterly fails to prove its thesis.
XP installation hasn’t changed one significantly since it was issued. Service packs, drivers and updates have always been issues of course but the writer is attempting to make it sound as if XP installation can’t/won’t complete without the “hundreds of megabytes” (an exaggeration) in downloads referenced.
Linux may indeed be easier under the conditions specified but open-source advocates have railed against the FUD of the big software & hardware companies for years - why are they relying on it now in order to make their case?
I think his point was/is that with new machines that don’t come with XP preinstalled (thus resolving the driver issues), “downgrading” to XP from Vista will have significant challenges because M$ is/will no longer be developing drivers for new hardware, whereas Linux will.