diff --git a/nixos/doc/manual/from_md/release-notes/rl-2305.section.xml b/nixos/doc/manual/from_md/release-notes/rl-2305.section.xml
index 6936fdd2605fe7d..522b6d9c87f191c 100644
--- a/nixos/doc/manual/from_md/release-notes/rl-2305.section.xml
+++ b/nixos/doc/manual/from_md/release-notes/rl-2305.section.xml
@@ -11,6 +11,19 @@
       has the following highlights:
     </para>
     <itemizedlist>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Core version changes:
+        </para>
+        <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
+          <listitem>
+            <para>
+              default linux: 5.15 -&gt; 6.1, all supported kernels
+              available
+            </para>
+          </listitem>
+        </itemizedlist>
+      </listitem>
       <listitem>
         <para>
           Cinnamon has been updated to 5.6, see
diff --git a/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2305.section.md b/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2305.section.md
index b7614c0788cf1e2..3f4a5d5fbc7556a 100644
--- a/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2305.section.md
+++ b/nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2305.section.md
@@ -8,6 +8,10 @@ In addition to numerous new and upgraded packages, this release has the followin
 
 <!-- To avoid merge conflicts, consider adding your item at an arbitrary place in the list instead. -->
 
+- Core version changes:
+
+  - default linux: 5.15 -\> 6.1, all supported kernels available
+
 - Cinnamon has been updated to 5.6, see [the pull request](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/201328#issue-1449910204) for what is changed.
 
 - `nixos-rebuild` now supports an extra `--specialisation` option that can be used to change specialisation for `switch` and `test` commands.
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/linux-kernels.nix b/pkgs/top-level/linux-kernels.nix
index 56225b6d424158b..e759e424a3169f9 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/linux-kernels.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/linux-kernels.nix
@@ -596,7 +596,7 @@ in {
   });
 
   packageAliases = {
-    linux_default = packages.linux_5_15;
+    linux_default = packages.linux_6_1;
     # Update this when adding the newest kernel major version!
     linux_latest = packages.linux_6_1;
     linux_mptcp = packages.linux_mptcp_95;