diff --git a/pkgs/tools/compression/gzip/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/compression/gzip/default.nix
index d15b26f48b6..c1e86b5d2f6 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/compression/gzip/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/compression/gzip/default.nix
@@ -8,6 +8,10 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     sha256 = "0wx1nqk709kx75cwp2axachnbxryp4gyl06qxn5nl95184w0mhls";
   };
 
+  doCheck = true;
+
+  patches = [ ./skip-some-tests.patch ];
+
   meta = {
     homepage = http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/;
     description = "Gzip, the GNU zip compression program";
diff --git a/pkgs/tools/compression/gzip/skip-some-tests.patch b/pkgs/tools/compression/gzip/skip-some-tests.patch
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ebcda684ef7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/tools/compression/gzip/skip-some-tests.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Skip tests requiring Perl and less (more).
+Also zgrep-signal skipping fails with weird Bad file number error on illumos.
+--- gzip-1.5/tests/Makefile.in.orig	2013-02-23 15:15:08.017048868 +0000
++++ gzip-1.5/tests/Makefile.in	2013-02-23 15:15:32.756197039 +0000
+@@ -1421,7 +1421,6 @@
+   trailing-nul				\
+   zdiff					\
+   zgrep-f				\
+-  zgrep-signal				\
+   znew-k
+ 
+ EXTRA_DIST = \
+@@ -1441,8 +1440,6 @@
+   zfgrep	\
+   zforce	\
+   zgrep		\
+-  zless		\
+-  zmore		\
+   znew
+ 
+ TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \