diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 344637ad5e..c3132c70e5 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -14,6 +14,8 @@ install:
   - sudo apt-get update
   - sudo apt-get purge -y mysql-common
   - sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-common libmariadbclient-dev
+  - ./ci/fix-mariadb.sh
+
   - wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/wkhtmltopdf/0.12.1/wkhtmltox-0.12.1_linux-precise-amd64.deb
   - sudo dpkg -i wkhtmltox-0.12.1_linux-precise-amd64.deb
   - CFLAGS=-O0 pip install git+https://github.com/frappe/frappe.git@v5.0
diff --git a/ci/fix-mariadb.sh b/ci/fix-mariadb.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..886ec5e0d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/fix-mariadb.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# stolen from http://cgit.drupalcode.org/octopus/commit/?id=db4f837
+includedir=`mysql_config --variable=pkgincludedir`
+thiscwd=`pwd`
+_THIS_DB_VERSION=`mysql -V 2>&1 | tr -d "\n" | cut -d" " -f6 | awk '{ print $1}' | cut -d"-" -f1 | awk '{ print $1}' | sed "s/[\,']//g"`
+if [ "$_THIS_DB_VERSION" = "5.5.40" ] && [ ! -e "$includedir-$_THIS_DB_VERSION-fixed.log" ] ; then
+  cd $includedir
+  sudo patch -p1 < $thiscwd/ci/my_config.h.patch &> /dev/null
+  sudo touch $includedir-$_THIS_DB_VERSION-fixed.log
+fi
diff --git a/ci/my_config.h.patch b/ci/my_config.h.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5247b5b39b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/my_config.h.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+diff -burp a/my_config.h b/my_config.h
+--- a/my_config.h	2014-10-09 19:32:46.000000000 -0400
++++ b/my_config.h	2014-10-09 19:35:12.000000000 -0400
+@@ -641,17 +641,4 @@
+ #define SIZEOF_TIME_T 8
+ /* #undef TIME_T_UNSIGNED */
+
+-/*
+-  stat structure (from <sys/stat.h>) is conditionally defined
+-  to have different layout and size depending on the defined macros.
+-  The correct macro is defined in my_config.h, which means it MUST be
+-  included first (or at least before <features.h> - so, practically,
+-  before including any system headers).
+-
+-  __GLIBC__ is defined in <features.h>
+-*/
+-#ifdef __GLIBC__
+-#error <my_config.h> MUST be included first!
+-#endif
+-
+ #endif
+