diff --git a/tests/test_ringbuf.py b/tests/test_ringbuf.py
index 56c4eae8..e55a87b9 100644
--- a/tests/test_ringbuf.py
+++ b/tests/test_ringbuf.py
@@ -21,6 +21,9 @@ from tractor._testing.samples import (
 # XXX, in case you want to melt your cores, comment this skip line XD
 pytestmark = pytest.mark.skip
 
+# XXX `cffi` dun build on py3.14 yet..
+cffi = pytest.importorskip("cffi")
+
 
 @tractor.context
 async def child_read_shm(
diff --git a/tractor/ipc/_linux.py b/tractor/ipc/_linux.py
index 88d80d1c..cd7de870 100644
--- a/tractor/ipc/_linux.py
+++ b/tractor/ipc/_linux.py
@@ -17,10 +17,20 @@
 Linux specifics, for now we are only exposing EventFD
 
 '''
-import os
 import errno
+import os
+import sys
+
+try:
+    import cffi
+except ImportError as ie:
+    if sys.version_info < (3, 14):
+        ie.add_note(
+            f'The `cffi` pkg has no 3.14 support yet.\n'
+        )
+
+    raise ie
 
-import cffi
 import trio
 
 ffi = cffi.FFI()