diff --git a/sysdeps/unix/bsd/sun/sparc/Makefile b/sysdeps/unix/bsd/sun/sparc/Makefile
index ac4121dc2c..59d10dbdbf 100644
--- a/sysdeps/unix/bsd/sun/sparc/Makefile
+++ b/sysdeps/unix/bsd/sun/sparc/Makefile
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+# Basically `-e start' is magical to the Sun linker.  You would think that
+# having start.o first would be enough, but you would be wrong.
+LDFLAGS := $(LDFLAGS) -Xlinker -e -Xlinker start
+
 ifeq ($(subdir),signal)
 sysdep_routines := $(sysdep_routines) sigtramp
 endif