diff --git a/stackrc b/stackrc
index 2d5079fd1c..9bc3be6f44 100644
--- a/stackrc
+++ b/stackrc
@@ -62,7 +62,12 @@ CITEST_BRANCH=master
 #      http://launchpad.net/cirros/trunk/0.3.0/+download/cirros-0.3.0-x86_64-rootfs.img.gz
 #IMAGE_URLS="http://smoser.brickies.net/ubuntu/ttylinux-uec/ttylinux-uec-amd64-11.2_2.6.35-15_1.tar.gz" # old ttylinux-uec image
 #IMAGE_URLS="http://launchpad.net/cirros/trunk/0.3.0/+download/cirros-0.3.0-x86_64-disk.img" # cirros full disk image
-IMAGE_URLS="http://launchpad.net/cirros/trunk/0.3.0/+download/cirros-0.3.0-x86_64-uec.tar.gz" # uec style cirros image
+case "$LIBVIRT_TYPE" in
+    lxc) # the cirros root disk in the uec tarball is empty, so it will not work for lxc
+        IMAGE_URLS="http://launchpad.net/cirros/trunk/0.3.0/+download/cirros-0.3.0-x86_64-rootfs.img.gz";;
+    *)  # otherwise, use the uec style image (with kernel, ramdisk, disk)
+        IMAGE_URLS="http://launchpad.net/cirros/trunk/0.3.0/+download/cirros-0.3.0-x86_64-uec.tar.gz";;
+esac
 
 # allow local overrides of env variables
 if [ -f ./localrc ]; then