diff --git a/chapter08/python.xml b/chapter08/python.xml
index 0f22ab2a9..d60378abb 100644
--- a/chapter08/python.xml
+++ b/chapter08/python.xml
@@ -90,6 +90,10 @@
     automatically re-run failed tests.  If a test failed but then passed
     when re-run, it should be considered as passed.</para>
 
+    <para>Two tests named <filename>test_xml_etree</filename> and
+    <filename>test_xml_etree_c</filename> are known to fail with expat-2.6.0
+    or newer.</para>
+
     <para>Install the package:</para>
 
 <screen><userinput remap="install">make install</userinput></screen>
diff --git a/chapter08/util-linux.xml b/chapter08/util-linux.xml
index 91e0c3dd7..c187030eb 100644
--- a/chapter08/util-linux.xml
+++ b/chapter08/util-linux.xml
@@ -93,7 +93,14 @@
 
 <screen><userinput remap="make">make</userinput></screen>
 
-    <para>If desired, run the test suite as a non-&root; user:</para>
+    <!-- To editors:
+         Two tests need a /etc/fstab file.  They are skipped if the host
+         distro isn't using systemd as the init system, so don't remove
+         the creation of /etc/fstab unless you've tested it with such a
+         host distro (for example LFS systemd or Debian).  -->
+    <para>If desired, create a dummy <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> file
+    to satisfy two tests and run the test suite as a non-&root;
+    user:</para>
 
     <warning><para>Running the test suite as the
     <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> user can be harmful to
@@ -106,7 +113,8 @@
 <screen role="nodump"><userinput>bash tests/run.sh --srcdir=$PWD --builddir=$PWD</userinput></screen>
     </warning>
 
-<screen><userinput remap="test">chown -R tester .
+<screen><userinput remap="test">touch /etc/fstab
+chown -R tester .
 su tester -c "make -k check"</userinput></screen>
 
     <para>