diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index cb03f446848caaee97776524777f2cf5c8a5649d..f8a45ba1df5729c68a7d98e7fc71fcb1995869db 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
 # NB: don't set `language: haskell` here
+language: c
+
+sudo: required
 
 # The following enables several GHC versions to be tested; often it's enough to
 # test only against the last release in a major GHC version. Feel free to omit