diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index a751e658e..4a32fe295 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,8 +1,12 @@
 language: php
 
 sudo: false
+
 dist: trusty
 
+git:
+  depth: 5
+
 cache:
   directories:
     - $HOME/.composer/cache
@@ -29,16 +33,27 @@ matrix:
   allow_failures:
     - php: nightly
 
-before_script:
-    - rm -f ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/conf.d/xdebug.ini
-    - flags="--prefer-dist"
+before_install:
+    # determine INI file
+    - if [[ $TRAVIS_PHP_VERSION = hhvm* ]]; then export INI=/etc/hhvm/php.ini; else export INI=~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/conf.d/travis.ini; fi
+     # disable xdebug if available
+    - phpenv config-rm xdebug.ini || echo "xdebug not available"
+    # disable default memory limit
+    - echo memory_limit = -1 >> $INI
+
+install:
+    # flags to pass to install
+    - flags="--ansi --prefer-dist --no-interaction --optimize-autoloader --no-suggest --no-progress"
+    # install dependencies using system provided composer binary
     - composer install $flags
+    # install dependencies using composer from source
     - bin/composer install $flags
+
+before_script:
+    # make sure git tests do not complain about user/email not being set
     - git config --global user.name travis-ci
     - git config --global user.email travis@example.com
 
 script:
+    # run test suite directories in parallel using GNU parallel
     - ls -d tests/Composer/Test/* | parallel --gnu --keep-order 'echo "Running {} tests"; ./vendor/bin/phpunit -c tests/complete.phpunit.xml --colors=always {} || (echo -e "\e[41mFAILED\e[0m {}" && $(exit 1));'
-
-git:
-  depth: 5
diff --git a/tests/Composer/Test/CacheTest.php b/tests/Composer/Test/CacheTest.php
index 4fb467d22..d8fc401e1 100644
--- a/tests/Composer/Test/CacheTest.php
+++ b/tests/Composer/Test/CacheTest.php
@@ -24,10 +24,6 @@ class CacheTest extends TestCase
 
     public function setUp()
     {
-        if (getenv('TRAVIS')) {
-            $this->markTestSkipped('Test causes intermittent failures on Travis');
-        }
-
         $this->root = $this->getUniqueTmpDirectory();
         $this->files = array();
         $zeros = str_repeat('0', 1000);
diff --git a/tests/Composer/Test/Fixtures/functional/create-project-command.test b/tests/Composer/Test/Fixtures/functional/create-project-command.test
index 35c343355..1c4813446 100644
--- a/tests/Composer/Test/Fixtures/functional/create-project-command.test
+++ b/tests/Composer/Test/Fixtures/functional/create-project-command.test
@@ -1,11 +1,4 @@
 --RUN--
 create-project seld/jsonlint %testDir% 1.0.0 --prefer-source -n
---EXPECT-ERROR--
-Installing seld/jsonlint (1.0.0)
-  - Installing seld/jsonlint (1.0.0): Cloning 3b4bc2a96f
-Created project in %testDir%
-Loading composer repositories with package information
-Updating dependencies (including require-dev)
-Nothing to install or update
-Writing lock file
-Generating autoload files
+--EXPECT-ERROR-REGEX--
+{Installing seld/jsonlint \(1.0.0\): Cloning [a-f0-9]{10}( from cache)?}
diff --git a/tests/Composer/TestCase.php b/tests/Composer/TestCase.php
index 1d1784600..b827ffa90 100644
--- a/tests/Composer/TestCase.php
+++ b/tests/Composer/TestCase.php
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ abstract class TestCase extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
      *
      * @param string $executableName The name of the binary to test.
      *
-     * @throws PHPUnit_Framework_SkippedTestError
+     * @throws \PHPUnit_Framework_SkippedTestError
      */
     protected function skipIfNotExecutable($executableName)
     {