diff --git a/debian/patches/use-x-terminal-emulator.patch b/debian/patches/use-x-terminal-emulator.patch
index fd515c16..28e9200d 100644
--- a/debian/patches/use-x-terminal-emulator.patch
+++ b/debian/patches/use-x-terminal-emulator.patch
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
 -# distribution-specific mechanism to find the preferred terminal emulator. On
 -# Debian, there is the x-terminal-emulator symlink for example.
 -# Please don't touch the first line, though:
- which $TERMINAL >/dev/null && exec $TERMINAL "$@"
+ [ -n "$TERMINAL" ] && which $TERMINAL >/dev/null && exec $TERMINAL "$@"
  
 +# Debian-specific: use x-terminal-emulator
 +which x-terminal-emulator >/dev/null && exec x-terminal-emulator "$@"
diff --git a/i3-sensible-terminal b/i3-sensible-terminal
index 28e60623..e5bf2718 100755
--- a/i3-sensible-terminal
+++ b/i3-sensible-terminal
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 # distribution-specific mechanism to find the preferred terminal emulator. On
 # Debian, there is the x-terminal-emulator symlink for example.
 # Please don't touch the first line, though:
-which $TERMINAL >/dev/null && exec $TERMINAL "$@"
+[ -n "$TERMINAL" ] && which $TERMINAL >/dev/null && exec $TERMINAL "$@"
 
 # Hopefully one of these is installed:
 which xterm >/dev/null && exec xterm "$@"