diff --git a/config b/config
index 78aac51b5..2427c4a1a 100755
--- a/config
+++ b/config
@@ -284,7 +284,7 @@ done
 
 # figure out if gcc is available and if so we use it otherwise
 # we fallback to whatever cc does on the system
-GCCVER=`gcc -v 2>&1`
+GCCVER=`(gcc -v) 2>&1`
 if [ $? = "0" ]; then
   CC=gcc
 else