diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 27f163a28..2ba243d95 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -127,7 +127,11 @@ class Config(object):
             # build path and the loader will fail.
             args = []
             args += ['-Wl,-soname,' + self.libname_of(mod)]
-            args += ['-Wl,-rpath,$ORIGIN']
+            if not '_dbpi' in mod:
+                loader_path = '$ORIGIN'
+            else:
+                loader_path = '$ORIGIN/..'
+            args += ['-Wl,-rpath,' + loader_path]
             return args
 
     def macros(self):
diff --git a/src/tl/unit_tests/tlString.cc b/src/tl/unit_tests/tlString.cc
index 93c254a04..13e2f064b 100644
--- a/src/tl/unit_tests/tlString.cc
+++ b/src/tl/unit_tests/tlString.cc
@@ -484,9 +484,13 @@ TEST(14)
 //  UTF-8 to wchar_t and local conversion
 TEST(15)
 {
-  //  NOTE: we don't know the local setting, but translation back and forth should work.
   std::string locale = setlocale (LC_ALL, NULL);
-  setlocale (LC_ALL, "en_US.UTF-8");
+  const char *lc = setlocale (LC_ALL, "en_US.UTF-8");
+  if (! lc || std::string (lc) != "en_US.UTF-8") {
+    //  use C.UTF-8 as fallback
+    setlocale (LC_ALL, "C.UTF-8");
+  }
+
   try {
     EXPECT_EQ (tl::to_string_from_local (tl::to_local ("Hällo\tWörld!").c_str ()), "Hällo\tWörld!");
     setlocale (LC_ALL, locale.c_str ());