diff --git a/package/sdl2/sdl2.mk b/package/sdl2/sdl2.mk
index d2ee50dc1d..628d9060b4 100644
--- a/package/sdl2/sdl2.mk
+++ b/package/sdl2/sdl2.mk
@@ -23,6 +23,16 @@ SDL2_CONF_OPTS += \
 # We must enable static build to get compilation successful.
 SDL2_CONF_OPTS += --enable-static
 
+# From https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi/?bug=770670
+# "The problem lies within SDL_cpuinfo.h.  It includes altivec.h, which by
+# definition provides an unconditional vector, pixel and bool define in
+# standard-c++ mode.  In GNU-c++ mode this names are only defined
+# context-sensitive by cpp.  SDL_cpuinfo.h is included by SDL.h.
+# Including altivec.h makes arbitrary code break."
+ifeq ($(BR2_POWERPC_CPU_HAS_ALTIVEC),y)
+SDL2_CONF_OPTS += --disable-altivec
+endif
+
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_HAS_UDEV),y)
 SDL2_DEPENDENCIES += udev
 SDL2_CONF_OPTS += --enable-libudev