diff --git a/meta-zephyr-bsp/conf/machine/qemu-nios2.conf b/meta-zephyr-bsp/conf/machine/qemu-nios2.conf
index de203205863ae9b99b9f748c99541884c127e765..c41f505878e02c0f2a62f1de3de4eca6d1360a45 100644
--- a/meta-zephyr-bsp/conf/machine/qemu-nios2.conf
+++ b/meta-zephyr-bsp/conf/machine/qemu-nios2.conf
@@ -14,3 +14,5 @@ QB_OPT_APPEND = "-nographic"
 QB_CPU = "-cpu nios2"
 
 ARCH:qemu-nios2 = "nios2"
+
+TCLIBC = "glibc"
diff --git a/meta-zephyr-core/conf/distro/zephyr.conf b/meta-zephyr-core/conf/distro/zephyr.conf
index 6ecd4211ed04d7c1eb44293f13eba2e9ff375b55..bdf18215fe5f2cc6072d353e5364de58096ca0b6 100644
--- a/meta-zephyr-core/conf/distro/zephyr.conf
+++ b/meta-zephyr-core/conf/distro/zephyr.conf
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ DISTRO_VERSION = "1.0"
 
 TARGET_VENDOR = "-yocto"
 
-TCLIBC = "newlib"
+TCLIBC ?= "newlib"
 
 TEST_TARGET = "QemuTargetZephyr"
 TEST_SUITES = "zephyr"