diff --git a/common/environment/setup/archive.sh b/common/environment/setup/archive.sh
index 4920bcdb41c..38853b87a8f 100644
--- a/common/environment/setup/archive.sh
+++ b/common/environment/setup/archive.sh
@@ -30,7 +30,12 @@ vextract() {
 	local archive="$1"
 	local ret=0
 
-	TAR_CMD="$(command -v bsdtar)"
+	# When tar is explicitly put *first* in hostmakedepends
+	# Some packages require tar to build but not for extraction
+	case "$hostmakedepends " in
+	"tar "*)   TAR_CMD="tar" ;;
+	esac
+	[ -z "$TAR_CMD" ] && TAR_CMD="$(command -v bsdtar)"
 	[ -z "$TAR_CMD" ] && TAR_CMD="$(command -v tar)"
 	[ -z "$TAR_CMD" ] && msg_error "xbps-src: no suitable tar cmd (bsdtar, tar)\n"
 	case "$archive" in
diff --git a/srcpkgs/kexec-tools/template b/srcpkgs/kexec-tools/template
index 6bd5b65e182..aa68b6f60a5 100644
--- a/srcpkgs/kexec-tools/template
+++ b/srcpkgs/kexec-tools/template
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@
 pkgname=kexec-tools
 version=2.0.26
 revision=1
-create_wrksrc=yes
 build_style=gnu-configure
 hostmakedepends="tar xz"
 makedepends="zlib-devel liblzma-devel"
@@ -12,7 +11,6 @@ license="GPL-2.0-only"
 homepage="http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kexec/"
 distfiles="${KERNEL_SITE}/utils/kernel/kexec/${pkgname}-${version}.tar.xz"
 checksum=7fe36a064101cd5c515e41b2be393dce3ca88adce59d6ee668e0af7c0c4570cd
-skip_extraction="${pkgname}-${version}.tar.xz"
 
 CFLAGS="-fcommon"
 
@@ -20,14 +18,6 @@ case "$XBPS_TARGET_MACHINE" in
 	ppc-musl) nopie=yes;; # textrels not supported
 esac
 
-do_extract() {
-	# bsdtar fails to extract version 2.0.20 tarball which
-	# contains (buggy) hard links from files to themselves.
-	tar --strip-components 1 --no-same-owner --extract --file \
-		${XBPS_SRCDISTDIR}/${pkgname}-${version}/${pkgname}-${version}.tar.xz \
-		--directory ${wrksrc}
-}
-
 pre_build() {
 	rm ${XBPS_WRAPPERDIR}/strip
 	case "$XBPS_TARGET_MACHINE" in