diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index a9cfab98c..cff4b5cd7 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -14,6 +14,8 @@ branches:
 before_install:
   - nvm install 8; nvm use 8
 install:
+  # need gnutls headers for pycurl
+  - sudo apt-get -yq install libgnutls28-dev
   - export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH
   - pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
   - ./ci/install.sh
@@ -21,6 +23,7 @@ install:
   - npm install
   - npm run webpack
   - pip install --upgrade . -r helm-chart/images/binderhub/requirements.txt
+  - pip freeze
 
 script:
   - export BINDER_TEST_NAMESPACE=binder-test-$TEST
diff --git a/ci/install.sh b/ci/install.sh
index c80c16a06..d170c946d 100755
--- a/ci/install.sh
+++ b/ci/install.sh
@@ -3,13 +3,10 @@ set -ex
 
 mkdir -p bin
 
-# install nsenter if missing (needed by kube on trusty)
-if ! which nsenter; then
-  curl -L https://github.com/minrk/git-crypt-bin/releases/download/trusty/nsenter > nsenter
-  echo "5652bda3fbea6078896705130286b491b6b1885d7b13bda1dfc9bdfb08b49a2e  nsenter" | shasum -a 256 -c -
-  chmod +x nsenter
-  sudo mv nsenter /usr/local/bin/
-fi
+# install gnutls headers for pycurl, socat for helm
+sudo apt-get update
+sudo apt-get -y install libgnutls28-dev socat
+
 
 # Workaround for kube 1.10: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/61058#issuecomment-372764783
 sudo mount --make-rshared /