diff --git a/pkgs/data/fonts/terminus-font/default.nix b/pkgs/data/fonts/terminus-font/default.nix
index cbda0cc100c..5b405c12405 100644
--- a/pkgs/data/fonts/terminus-font/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/data/fonts/terminus-font/default.nix
@@ -24,6 +24,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   '';
 
   installTargets = [ "install" "install-otb" "fontdir" ];
+  # fontdir depends on the previous two targets, but this is not known
+  # to make, so we need to disable parallelism:
+  enableParallelInstalling = false;
 
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "A clean fixed width font";