diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index f5bad81ef..bb64e4cfd 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@ cmake (3.3.2-1) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
 
   * New upstream release.
   * Drop Debian menu entries.
+  * Make compiler feature testing more reliable.
+    - Fixes testsuite failure on alpha. (Closes: #789807)
+    - Features_Extract_strings_from_test_binary_more_reliably.patch
 
  -- Felix Geyer <fgeyer@debian.org>  Fri, 04 Sep 2015 17:12:34 +0200
 
diff --git a/debian/patches/Features_Extract_strings_from_test_binary_more_reliably.patch b/debian/patches/Features_Extract_strings_from_test_binary_more_reliably.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e28f47959
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/patches/Features_Extract_strings_from_test_binary_more_reliably.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+From 150e1b27c54cf4e19e19ad7836e6bbfb9fbb5266 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
+From: Brad King <brad.king@kitware.com>
+Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:37:20 -0400
+Subject: [PATCH] Features: Extract strings from test binary more reliably
+ (#15736)
+
+Since commit v3.1.0-rc1~635^2~7 (project: Add infrastructure for
+recording CXX compiler features, 2013-10-17) we compile a test source to
+a binary and then extract "<LANG>_FEATURES:..." strings from the binary
+with the file(STRINGS) command.  Add a newline at the beginning of the
+string literal to be sure file(STRINGS) can extract the first entry as a
+string independent of whatever else the compiler may put before the
+storage it allocates for the literal within the binary.
+---
+ Modules/Internal/FeatureTesting.cmake |    2 +-
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
+
+diff --git a/Modules/Internal/FeatureTesting.cmake b/Modules/Internal/FeatureTesting.cmake
+index abd9a26..86b89b2 100644
+--- a/Modules/Internal/FeatureTesting.cmake
++++ b/Modules/Internal/FeatureTesting.cmake
+@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ macro(record_compiler_features lang compile_flags feature_list)
+   string(TOLOWER ${lang} lang_lc)
+   file(REMOVE "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/CMakeFiles/feature_tests.bin")
+   file(WRITE "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/CMakeFiles/feature_tests.${lang_lc}" "
+-  const char features[] = {\"\"\n")
++  const char features[] = {\"\\n\"\n")
+ 
+   get_property(known_features GLOBAL PROPERTY CMAKE_${lang}_KNOWN_FEATURES)
+ 
+-- 
+1.7.10.4
diff --git a/debian/patches/series b/debian/patches/series
index 198f0e9d0..09adfa81f 100644
--- a/debian/patches/series
+++ b/debian/patches/series
@@ -4,3 +4,4 @@ fix-ftbfs-on-kfreebsd.patch
 FindJNI.cmake.mips.patch
 fix-hdf5-hl.patch
 FindJNI-Add-support-for-x32-architecture-on-Linux.patch
+Features_Extract_strings_from_test_binary_more_reliably.patch