diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/make-tarball.nix b/pkgs/top-level/make-tarball.nix
index b3c29c26746..d2f74fe74c0 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/make-tarball.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/make-tarball.nix
@@ -2,17 +2,20 @@
    also builds the documentation and tests whether the Nix expressions
    evaluate correctly. */
 
-{ nixpkgs ? {outPath = (import ./all-packages.nix {}).lib.cleanSource ../..; rev = 1234;}
+{ nixpkgs ? { outPath = (import ./all-packages.nix {}).lib.cleanSource ../..; revCount = 1234; shortRev = "abcdef"; }
 , officialRelease ? false
 }:
 
 with import nixpkgs.outPath {};
 
-releaseTools.makeSourceTarball {
+releaseTools.sourceTarball {
   name = "nixpkgs-tarball";
   src = nixpkgs;
   inherit officialRelease;
 
+  version = builtins.readFile ../../VERSION;
+  versionSuffix = if officialRelease then "" else "pre${toString nixpkgs.revCount}_${nixpkgs.shortRev}";
+
   buildInputs = [
     lzma
     libxml2 # Needed for the release notes.
@@ -24,7 +27,7 @@ releaseTools.makeSourceTarball {
 
   configurePhase = ''
     eval "$preConfigure"
-    releaseName=nixpkgs-$(cat $src/VERSION)$VERSION_SUFFIX
+    releaseName=nixpkgs-$VERSION$VERSION_SUFFIX
     echo "release name is $releaseName"
     echo $releaseName > relname
   '';
@@ -57,7 +60,7 @@ releaseTools.makeSourceTarball {
         header "checking pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix on $platform"
         nix-env --readonly-mode -f pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix \
             --show-trace --argstr system "$platform" \
-            -qa \* --drv-path --system-filter \* --system --meta --xml
+            -qa \* --drv-path --system-filter \* --system --meta --xml > /dev/null
         stopNest
     done