By default, in a cross-build sbuild sets DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck and DEB_BUILD_PROFILES='cross nocheck'. Using the --profiles option replaces rather than adding to this default value of DEB_BUILD_PROFILES. I don't like that but I can accept it as a reasonable choice. However, it also disables the addition to DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS. This is surprising and doesn't seem to be documented in any way. This happens even if 'nocheck' is included in the --profiles option argument. (dh seems to have a workaround that automatically adds the missing 'nocheck' to DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS if it is found in DEB_BUILD_PROFILES. But packages that do not or cannot use dh, such as linux, are still affected by this.) Ben.