diff --git a/ci/travis_linux_script b/ci/travis_linux_script
index d841127fbf..61e3d10445 100755
--- a/ci/travis_linux_script
+++ b/ci/travis_linux_script
@@ -9,7 +9,10 @@ which $CXX
 echo $PATH
 mkdir build
 cd build
-cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$(pwd) -DZIG_LIBC_LIB_DIR=$(dirname $($CC -print-file-name=crt1.o)) -DZIG_LIBC_INCLUDE_DIR=$(echo -n | $CC -E -x c - -v 2>&1 | grep -B1 "End of search list." | head -n1 | cut -c 2- | sed "s/ .*//") -DZIG_LIBC_STATIC_LIB_DIR=$(dirname $($CC -print-file-name=crtbegin.o))
+cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$(pwd) -DZIG_LIBC_LIB_DIR=$(dirname $($CC -print-file-name=crt1.o)) -DZIG_LIBC_INCLUDE_DIR=$(echo -n | $CC -E -x c - -v 2>&1 | grep -B1 "End of search list." | head -n1 | cut -c 2- | sed "s/ .*//") -DZIG_LIBC_STATIC_LIB_DIR=$(dirname $($CC -print-file-name=crtbegin.o)) -DZIG_FORCE_EXTERNAL_LLD=ON
 make VERBOSE=1
 make install
-./zig build --build-file ../build.zig test
+# we have to skip cross compiling OSX tests because apt.llvm.org has an old version
+# of llvm for the version of ubuntu that travis is running on.
+./zig build --build-file ../build.zig test-behavior test-std test-compiler-rt -Dtest-filter=linux
+./zig build --build-file ../build.zig test-compare-output test-build-examples test-compile-errors test-asm-link test-debug-safety test-parseh