So what happens is that changing the keyboard language comes together with the CPU upgrade from Intel® Core® i3-1315U to Intel® Core® i7-1360P. That's what you pay for*. I agree with you that they might have done a better job at conveying what's happening. For whatever it's worth, I didn't immediately notice this myself. Therefore I tried to contact them in hopes of resolving the issue. They responded very quickly (like within a couple of minutes) and explained what was going on. Props to them for that!

Thank you for your reply! Much appreciated ☺️!

To clarify, they do jack shit to add major hardware support (etc).

Thanks! That's the clarification that I needed.

This seems like a disingenuous response.

My apologies if it seemed that way, that wasn't my intention.

Pop isn’t adding anything much to Linux

In absolute sense, to the kernel; sure.

it’s yet another Debian derivative by way of Ubuntu.

That's where we clearly differ. It offers (arguably) the easiest installation for Nvidia drivers (which is especially useful for new users). Furthermore, it has other neat functionality like a recovery partition; which is otherwise absent on any other Linux distro (at least that I'm aware off). I agree that these things mostly benefit the new user rather than the established one. Nonetheless, even if we're not the target audience, we shouldn't be dismissive of the work that others put into their platform.

Cosmic is cool and all, but it’s mostly just eye candy for GNOME at the end of the day.

How can it be for GNOME if it's its own Desktop Environment? Sure, it relies on GTK (like most other DEs). But it's a Rust-based DE, which is (AFAIK) unique and already commendable by itself. Again, I don't understand if you're just trying to be dismissive of other people's work or just being ignorant/misinformed.

System76 also seem to still be developing working with other people skills.

While this particular case is new to me, I can't say I'm surprised. FWIW, even Linux Torvalds himself needed to put effort in self-improving themselves in this department. Therefore, I don't quite understand why you felt the need to bring this up. FWIW, I never said or implied that System76 is some holy organization that can't do anything wrong. You made a vague statement with "The support that these vendors put in for Linux is miniscule" and I only intended to point out some of their continued contributions to 'Linux'. I could have named any other Linux-first vendor, but System76 seemed to be the most renowned and that's why I went with that one.

Tuxedo still haven’t as far as I’m aware released ITE829x Linux drivers (in an upstreamable form) for example; I had to reverse engineer the damned chip.

That's unfortunate. And I think that this short paragraph is the summary of your grievances with these Linux-first vendors. And if that's the case, then it's at least worth mentioning that I'm absolutely oblivious of the challenges that you might have faced in this regard.

This sentiment made me very curious into how much laptop vendors contribute to the Linux kernel in general^[1]^. Unfortunately, there was not a lot that I could find. Perhaps I'm just very bad at looking into that kinda thing. Therefore, if you're aware of a (half-)decent way to somehow see how much effort is done by different laptop vendors in order to support hardware on Linux, then please feel free to notify me of that 😊.

Clevo hardware lacks a lot of the polish that you just quietly get from a major manufacturer.

I'd have to take your word on it as you're clearly more experienced in this regard. But would you be so kind to give an example of two comparable laptops at comparable price-points; one from Clevo and another from a major manufacturer, in which the lack of polish is clearly visible? Like, if I as an average consumer look at the review on the Schenker XMG Focus 16 found on Notebookcheck.net and compare that to the reviews of the laptops it's compared to in its verdict, then I don't notice anything significant. Note that I've mostly just skimped the reviews*.

Sorry, the 3060ti was conflating my desktop; it’s literally a 2060 which is far worse in terms of termals and power.

No problem. Thank you for clarifying!

I have this laptop. I look at the Linux offerings from these manufacturers. I contribute to them.

Thank you for your continued contributions 😊!

I’m not saying that it’s all bad

This wasn't clear in your first reply.

and you seem to be taking this as something of a personal attack.

My apologies if it came across like that, I certainly didn't intend that*. To perhaps better illustrate how I read your first reply, allow me to paste it down below:

It’s fine to like these companies. I want them to succeed, but Clevo as an ODM tend to produce products that lack the polish of a comparable (say) Dell, and don’t achieve the same volume of sales as a major manufacturer to achieve lower costs through increased volume (etc) - the cost savings have to come from somewhere and often that’s the firmware, material design, and design quality.

Agreed. I probably couldn't have said it better. But, this doesn't mean that Dell or Lenovo (or any other major manufacturer for that matter) themselves actually accomplish in making good products. Theoretically, they should be able to produce either better (and/)or cheaper devices. However, the fact of the matter is that this simply isn't the case (or at least not substantially/significantly). The Thinkpads sold today are just an excuse compared to the Thinkpads that were sold in the past. Similarly, Dell's XPS series shook the market in the past, but now they've stuck on a bad implementation of what Apple^[2]^ deemed unworthy (talking about touch instead real keys for function keys (etc)).

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure pretty soon (probs with Meteor Lake already) Dell's and Lenovo's Linux offerings (so talking strictly about a subset of their offerings, refer to my earlier reply for the links) will at least be considerable CPU-wise. But until then, if anyone is serious about using their laptop as a proper workstation with somewhat decent battery life^[3]^, then it's simply not worth to bother with Dell (like at all) or Lenovo (unless they're willing to pay a hefty price for it).

So just to be absolutely clear. I don't categorically dismiss Dell, Lenovo or any other major manufacturer for that matter. But for OP's requirements; currently, they seem to be (at best) very expensive.

These products are fine, don’t pretend that they’re perfect though, you’re doing them a disservice.

Alright, so I suppose this is a reaction to the following statements of mine:

"Another bold claim; one which only holds true if merely Apple’s finest go beyond “fine”."

"At which point, the “fine” hardware from the Linux-first vendor not only starts to be attractive but highly desirable by comparison."

I'm sure earlier paragraphs should have been sufficient to explain my thoughts on this. But just in case; they're not perfect. But -IMO- for OP's requirements, they're at the very least worth considering.

1. I, perhaps naively, think that contributions to the Linux kernel are most representative for hardware support. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
2. Suffice to say, Apple actually had put thought into their design. Contrary to Dell's excuse of an implementation.
3. Reminder; OP explicitly wanted this.

Hmm..., I think with the level of literacy (or just plain text skimping) we find on the internet, anything that helps in conveying the message is a clear win; especially if merely the use of just two characters enables one to achieve this.

Could you elaborate on what you dislike about it? I'm just genuinely curious*.