diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 814be151f4..fabfe9ec34 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ before_install:
   - wget -O - http://people.linaro.org/~alex.bennee/qemu-submodule-git-seed.tar.xz | tar -xvJ
   - git submodule update --init --recursive
 before_script:
-  - ./configure ${CONFIG}
+  - ./configure ${CONFIG} || { cat config.log && exit 1; }
 script:
   - make ${MAKEFLAGS} && ${TEST_CMD}
 matrix:
@@ -80,19 +80,20 @@ matrix:
     - env: CONFIG="--disable-user"
       compiler: clang
     # gprof/gcov are GCC features
-    - env: CONFIG="--enable-gprof --enable-gcov --disable-pie --disable-linux-user"
+    - env: CONFIG="--enable-gprof --enable-gcov --disable-pie --target-list=aarch64-softmmu,arm-softmmu,i386-softmmu,mips-softmmu,mips64-softmmu,ppc64-softmmu,riscv64-softmmu,s390x-softmmu,x86_64-softmmu"
       compiler: gcc
     # We manually include builds which we disable "make check" for
     - env: CONFIG="--enable-debug --enable-tcg-interpreter"
            TEST_CMD=""
       compiler: gcc
-    - env: CONFIG="--enable-trace-backends=simple"
+    # We don't need to exercise every backend with every front-end
+    - env: CONFIG="--enable-trace-backends=log,simple,syslog --disable-system"
            TEST_CMD=""
       compiler: gcc
-    - env: CONFIG="--enable-trace-backends=ftrace"
+    - env: CONFIG="--enable-trace-backends=ftrace --target-list=x86_64-softmmu"
            TEST_CMD=""
       compiler: gcc
-    - env: CONFIG="--enable-trace-backends=ust"
+    - env: CONFIG="--enable-trace-backends=ust --target-list=x86_64-softmmu"
            TEST_CMD=""
       compiler: gcc
     - env: CONFIG="--disable-tcg"
@@ -151,4 +152,4 @@ matrix:
         - CONFIG="--cc=gcc-7 --cxx=g++-7 --disable-pie --disable-linux-user"
         - TEST_CMD=""
       before_script:
-        - ./configure ${CONFIG} --extra-cflags="-g3 -O0 -fsanitize=thread -fuse-ld=gold" || cat config.log
+        - ./configure ${CONFIG} --extra-cflags="-g3 -O0 -fsanitize=thread -fuse-ld=gold" || { cat config.log && exit 1; }