diff --git a/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SOURCES/bootstrap_eb.py b/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SOURCES/bootstrap_eb.py
index 3255caa1d0..77c80377d1 100644
--- a/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SOURCES/bootstrap_eb.py
+++ b/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SOURCES/bootstrap_eb.py
@@ -585,20 +585,22 @@ def stage2(tmpdir, templates, install_path, distribute_egg_dir, sourcepath):
     print('\n')
     info("+++ STAGE 2: installing EasyBuild in %s with EasyBuild from stage 1...\n" % install_path)
 
-    if distribute_egg_dir is None:
-        preinstallopts = ''
-    else:
-        # inject path to distribute installed in stage 1 into $PYTHONPATH via preinstallopts
-        # other approaches are not reliable, since EasyBuildMeta easyblock unsets $PYTHONPATH;
-        preinstallopts = "export PYTHONPATH=%s:$PYTHONPATH && " % distribute_egg_dir
-
-    # ensure that (latest) setuptools is installed as well alongside EasyBuild,
-    # since it is a required runtime dependency for recent vsc-base and EasyBuild versions
-    # this is necessary since we provide our own distribute installation during the bootstrap (cfr. stage0)
-    preinstallopts += "easy_install -U --prefix %(installdir)s setuptools && "
+    preinstallopts = ''
+
+    if distribute_egg_dir is not None:
+        # ensure that (latest) setuptools is installed as well alongside EasyBuild,
+        # since it is a required runtime dependency for recent vsc-base and EasyBuild versions
+        # this is necessary since we provide our own distribute installation during the bootstrap (cfr. stage0)
+        preinstallopts += "easy_install -U --prefix %(installdir)s setuptools && "
+
     # vsc-install is a runtime dependency for the EasyBuild unit test suite,
     # and is easily picked up from stage1 rather than being actually installed, so force it
-    preinstallopts += "easy_install -U --prefix %(installdir)s vsc-install && "
+    vsc_install_tarball_paths = glob.glob(os.path.join(sourcepath, 'vsc-install*.tar.gz'))
+    if len(vsc_install_tarball_paths) == 1:
+        vsc_install = vsc_install_tarball_paths[0]
+    else:
+        vsc_install = 'vsc-install'
+    preinstallopts += "easy_install -U --prefix %%(installdir)s %s && " % vsc_install
 
     templates.update({
         'preinstallopts': preinstallopts,
@@ -823,8 +825,8 @@ def main():
 # >>> base64.b64encode(zlib.compress(open("distribute_setup.py").read()))
 # compressed copy below is for setuptools 0.6c11, after applying patch:
 #
-# --- distribute_setup.py.orig  2013-07-05 03:50:13.000000000 +0200
-# +++ distribute_setup.py   2015-11-27 12:20:12.040032041 +0100
+# --- distribute_setup.py.orig	2013-07-05 03:50:13.000000000 +0200
+# +++ distribute_setup.py	2015-11-27 12:20:12.040032041 +0100
 # @@ -528,6 +528,8 @@
 #              log.warn("--user requires Python 2.6 or later")
 #              raise SystemExit(1)
@@ -949,4 +951,3 @@ def main():
 
 # run main function as body of script
 main()
-
diff --git a/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SPECS/easybuild.spec b/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SPECS/easybuild.spec
index 373e685299..152ccba707 100644
--- a/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SPECS/easybuild.spec
+++ b/components/dev-tools/easybuild/SPECS/easybuild.spec
@@ -74,8 +74,9 @@ export EASYBUILD_BOOTSTRAP_SOURCEPATH=%{_sourcedir}
 export EASYBUILD_BOOTSTRAP_DEBUG=1
 export DEBUG_EASYBUILD_OPTIONS=1
 export EASYBUILD_INSTALLPATH=%{install_path}
-export EB_VERSION=%{version}
 export PATH=${LMOD_DIR}:${PATH}
+# note: $EB_VERSION and $PYTHON_VERSION are only required because of bootstrap_eb.py-apply-patch.patch
+export EB_VERSION=%{version}
 export PYTHON_VERSION=`python -c 'print ".".join(map(str, __import__("sys").version_info[:2]))'`
 
 MODULEPATH= python ./bootstrap_eb.py %{buildroot}/%{install_path}