diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/vm/default.nix b/pkgs/build-support/vm/default.nix
index 8322b6896465..f4d34584d250 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/vm/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/vm/default.nix
@@ -7,9 +7,7 @@ rec {
   # The 15 second CIFS timeout is too short if the host if heavily
   # loaded (e.g., in the Hydra build farm when it's running many jobs
   # in parallel).  So apply a patch to increase the timeout to 120s.
-  kernel = pkgs.linux.override (orig: {
-    kernelPatches = orig.kernelPatches ++ [ kernelPatches.cifs_timeout ];
-  });
+  kernel = assert pkgs.linux.features.cifsTimeout; pkgs.linux;
 
   kvm = pkgs.qemu_kvm;
 
diff --git a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/patches.nix b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/patches.nix
index 45e3174dc804..12370c988799 100644
--- a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/patches.nix
+++ b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/patches.nix
@@ -160,6 +160,17 @@ in
   cifs_timeout =
     { name = "cifs-timeout";
       patch = ./cifs-timeout.patch;
+      features.cifsTimeout = true;
+    };
+
+  no_xsave =
+    { name = "no-xsave";
+      patch = fetchurl {
+        url = "http://cvs.fedoraproject.org/viewvc/devel/kernel/fix_xen_guest_on_old_EC2.patch?revision=1.1&view=co";
+        name = "no-xsave.patch";
+        sha256 = "02f51f9b636b105c81a3ed62145abdc0ecb043b8114eb10257854577f617f894";
+      };
+      features.noXsave = true;
     };
   
 }
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index 0447c0c8fba0..b43a5e59582b 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -6472,6 +6472,8 @@ let
       [ kernelPatches.fbcondecor_2_6_31
         kernelPatches.sec_perm_2_6_24
         kernelPatches.aufs2_2_6_32
+        kernelPatches.cifs_timeout
+        kernelPatches.no_xsave
       ];
   };