diff --git a/pkgs/applications/audio/svox/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/audio/svox/default.nix
index 0f8e5143883..d5b67819cb0 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/audio/svox/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/audio/svox/default.nix
@@ -1,37 +1,24 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchgit }:
+{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, autoreconfHook, popt }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation {
   pname = "svox";
-  version = "2017-07-18";
+  version = "2018-02-14";
 
-  src = fetchgit {
-    url = "https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/svox";
-    rev = "7e68d0e9aac1b5d2ad15e92ddaa3bceb27973fcb";
-    sha256 = "1bqj12w23nn27x64ianm2flrqvkskpvgrnly7ah8gv6k8s8chh3r";
+  # basically took the source code from android and borrowed autotool patches from debian
+  src = fetchFromGitHub {
+    owner = "naggety";
+    repo = "picotts";
+    rev = "e3ba46009ee868911fa0b53db672a55f9cc13b1c";
+    sha256 = "0k3m7vh1ak9gmxd83x29cvhzfkybgz5hnlhd9xj19l1bjyx84s8v";
   };
 
   postPatch = ''
     cd pico
   '';
 
-  buildPhase = ''
-    cd lib
-    for i in *.c; do
-      $CC -O2 -fPIC -c -o ''${i%.c}.o $i
-    done
-    $CC -shared -o libttspico.so *.o
-    cd ..
-  '';
+  buildInputs = [ popt ];
 
-  installPhase = ''
-    install -Dm755 lib/libttspico.so $out/lib/libttspico.so
-    mkdir -p $out/include
-    cp lib/*.h $out/include
-    mkdir -p $out/share/pico/lang
-    cp lang/*.bin $out/share/pico/lang
-  '';
-
-  NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE = "-include stdint.h";
+  nativeBuildInputs = [ autoreconfHook ];
 
   meta = with stdenv.lib; {
     description = "Text-to-speech engine";