diff --git a/base/linux-src/linux-src.conf b/base/linux-src/linux-src.conf
index 286abb29d..eabbebd7f 100644
--- a/base/linux-src/linux-src.conf
+++ b/base/linux-src/linux-src.conf
@@ -24,7 +24,8 @@ main_lx_src() {
 
 	# hack to extract the files into our usr/src dir ...
 	# this part is continued inside lx_injectextraversion
-	tar $taropt $( match_source_file -p linux linux | head -n 1 )
+	mkdir -p linux-$vanilla_ver
+	tar -C linux-$vanilla_ver --strip-components=1 $taropt $( match_source_file -p linux linux | head -n 1 )
 
 	chown -R 0:0 linux-$vanilla_ver; chmod go=u,go-w linux-$vanilla_ver
 	cd linux-$vanilla_ver