diff --git a/src/storage/storage_backend.c b/src/storage/storage_backend.c
index 5f1bc66971..662af3266f 100644
--- a/src/storage/storage_backend.c
+++ b/src/storage/storage_backend.c
@@ -329,7 +329,8 @@ createRawFile(int fd, virStorageVolDefPtr vol,
         goto cleanup;
     }
 
-#ifdef HAVE_FALLOCATE
+/* Avoid issues with older kernel's <linux/fs.h> namespace pollution. */
+#if HAVE_FALLOCATE - 0
     /* Try to preallocate all requested disk space, but fall back to
      * other methods if this fails with ENOSYS or EOPNOTSUPP.
      * NOTE: do not use posix_fallocate; posix_fallocate falls back