diff --git a/binding.js b/binding.js
index 93eb9e37..4752000c 100644
--- a/binding.js
+++ b/binding.js
@@ -61,12 +61,16 @@ module.exports.download_vips = function() {
     if (process.arch === 'ia32') {
       error('Intel Architecture 32-bit systems require manual installation - please see http://sharp.dimens.io/en/stable/install/');
     }
-    // Ensure libc >= 2.15
+    // Ensure glibc >= 2.15
     var lddVersion = process.env.LDD_VERSION;
     if (lddVersion) {
-      var libcVersion = lddVersion ? lddVersion.split(/\n/)[0].split(' ').slice(-1)[0].trim() : '';
-      if (libcVersion && semver.lt(libcVersion + '.0', '2.13.0')) {
-        error('libc version ' + libcVersion + ' requires manual installation - please see http://sharp.dimens.io/en/stable/install/');
+      if (/glibc/i.test(lddVersion)) {
+        var glibcVersion = lddVersion ? lddVersion.split(/\n/)[0].split(' ').slice(-1)[0].trim() : '';
+        if (glibcVersion && semver.lt(glibcVersion + '.0', '2.13.0')) {
+          error('glibc version ' + glibcVersion + ' requires manual installation - please see http://sharp.dimens.io/en/stable/install/');
+        }
+      } else {
+        error(lddVersion.split(/\n/)[0] + ' requires manual installation - please see http://sharp.dimens.io/en/stable/install/');
       }
     }
     // Arch/platform-specific .tar.gz
diff --git a/docs/changelog.md b/docs/changelog.md
index 812cd033..8ec4d2d1 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.md
+++ b/docs/changelog.md
@@ -37,6 +37,10 @@
   [#351](https://github.com/lovell/sharp/pull/351)
   [@joelmukuthu](https://github.com/joelmukuthu)
 
+* Check for glibc before downloading pre-compiled binaries.
+  [#354](https://github.com/lovell/sharp/issues/354)
+  [@download13](https://github.com/download13)
+
 * Small optimisation when reducing by an integral factor to favour shrink over affine.
 
 * Add support for gamma correction of images with an alpha channel.
diff --git a/docs/index.md b/docs/index.md
index ae4287ee..6a321ae0 100644
--- a/docs/index.md
+++ b/docs/index.md
@@ -4,8 +4,8 @@ The typical use case for this high speed Node.js module
 is to convert large images of many formats to
 smaller, web-friendly JPEG, PNG and WebP images of varying dimensions.
 
-Resizing an image is typically 4x faster than using
-the quickest ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick settings.
+Resizing an image is typically 4x faster than using the
+quickest ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick settings.
 
 Colour spaces, embedded ICC profiles and alpha transparency channels are all handled correctly.
 Bicubic interpolation with Lanczos anti-alias filtering ensures quality is not sacrificed for speed.
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ Bicubic interpolation with Lanczos anti-alias filtering ensures quality is not s
 As well as image resizing, operations such as
 rotation, extraction, compositing and gamma correction are available.
 
-64-bit Windows and recent Linux systems do not require
+Most Windows (x64), Linux and ARMv6+ systems do not require
 the installation of any external runtime dependencies.
 
 Use with OS X is as simple as running `brew install homebrew/science/vips`
diff --git a/docs/install.md b/docs/install.md
index d52abdab..9bf8862e 100644
--- a/docs/install.md
+++ b/docs/install.md
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ npm install sharp
 libvips and its dependencies are fetched and stored within `node_modules/sharp` during `npm install`.
 This involves an automated HTTPS download of approximately 6MB.
 
-Most recent Linux-based operating systems running on x64 and ARMv6+ CPUs should "just work", e.g.:
+Most recent Linux-based operating systems with glibc running on x64 and ARMv6+ CPUs should "just work", e.g.:
 
 * Debian 7, 8
 * Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, 14.10, 15.04, 15.10