diff --git a/src/runtime/export_linux_test.go b/src/runtime/export_linux_test.go
index 52afd28666e9af..f8c4b4fdc37ea2 100644
--- a/src/runtime/export_linux_test.go
+++ b/src/runtime/export_linux_test.go
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ const SigeventMaxSize = _sigev_max_size
 
 var NewOSProc0 = newosproc0
 var Mincore = mincore
+var ParseRelease = parseRelease
 
 type Siginfo siginfo
 type Sigevent sigevent
diff --git a/src/runtime/os_linux.go b/src/runtime/os_linux.go
index 493567b5303673..0474e6c90696cb 100644
--- a/src/runtime/os_linux.go
+++ b/src/runtime/os_linux.go
@@ -943,53 +943,66 @@ type kernelVersion struct {
 }
 
 // getKernelVersion returns major and minor kernel version numbers
-// parsed from the uname release field.
-func getKernelVersion() kernelVersion {
+// parsed from the uname release field. ok reports whether parsing
+// succeeded; on failure callers must pick a default rather than
+// failing, because this is called during osinit before the runtime
+// is fully initialized and a throw here is unrecoverable.
+func getKernelVersion() (kv kernelVersion, ok bool) {
 	var buf linux.Utsname
 	if e := linux.Uname(&buf); e != 0 {
-		throw("uname failed")
+		return kernelVersion{}, false
 	}
-
 	rel := gostringnocopy(&buf.Release[0])
 	major, minor, _, ok := parseRelease(rel)
 	if !ok {
-		throw("failed to parse kernel version from uname")
+		return kernelVersion{}, false
 	}
-	return kernelVersion{major: major, minor: minor}
+	return kernelVersion{major: major, minor: minor}, true
 }
 
-// parseRelease parses a dot-separated version number. It follows the
-// semver syntax, but allows the minor and patch versions to be
-// elided.
+// parseRelease parses a dot-separated version number from the prefix
+// of rel. It returns ok=true only if at least the major and minor
+// components were successfully parsed; the patch component is
+// best-effort. Trailing vendor or build suffixes such as
+// "-generic", "+", "_hi3535", or "-rc1" are ignored.
 func parseRelease(rel string) (major, minor, patch int, ok bool) {
-	// Strip anything after a dash or plus.
-	for i := 0; i < len(rel); i++ {
-		if rel[i] == '-' || rel[i] == '+' {
-			rel = rel[:i]
-			break
+	// next consumes a run of decimal digits from the front of rel,
+	// returning the parsed value. If the digits are followed by a
+	// '.', it is consumed and more is set so the caller knows to
+	// parse another component; otherwise scanning terminates and
+	// the rest of rel is discarded.
+	next := func() (n int, more, ok bool) {
+		i := 0
+		for i < len(rel) && rel[i] >= '0' && rel[i] <= '9' {
+			i++
 		}
-	}
-
-	next := func() (int, bool) {
-		for i := 0; i < len(rel); i++ {
-			if rel[i] == '.' {
-				ver, err := strconv.Atoi(rel[:i])
-				rel = rel[i+1:]
-				return ver, err == nil
-			}
+		if i == 0 {
+			return 0, false, false
+		}
+		n, err := strconv.Atoi(rel[:i])
+		if err != nil {
+			return 0, false, false
+		}
+		if i < len(rel) && rel[i] == '.' {
+			rel = rel[i+1:]
+			return n, true, true
 		}
-		ver, err := strconv.Atoi(rel)
 		rel = ""
-		return ver, err == nil
+		return n, false, true
 	}
-	if major, ok = next(); !ok || rel == "" {
-		return
+
+	var more bool
+	if major, more, ok = next(); !ok || !more {
+		return 0, 0, 0, false
 	}
-	if minor, ok = next(); !ok || rel == "" {
-		return
+	if minor, more, ok = next(); !ok {
+		return 0, 0, 0, false
+	}
+	if !more {
+		return major, minor, 0, true
 	}
-	patch, ok = next()
-	return
+	patch, _, _ = next()
+	return major, minor, patch, true
 }
 
 // GE checks if the running kernel version
diff --git a/src/runtime/os_linux32.go b/src/runtime/os_linux32.go
index 1ee1cdcaf90051..ff437ce6533282 100644
--- a/src/runtime/os_linux32.go
+++ b/src/runtime/os_linux32.go
@@ -10,8 +10,38 @@ import (
 	"unsafe"
 )
 
+// configure64bitsTimeOn32BitsArchitectures decides whether to use the
+// 64-bit time variants of futex and timer_settime on 32-bit Linux.
+//
+// The choice is normally made by parsing the kernel release string
+// from uname, because probing with -ENOSYS misbehaves on some
+// kernels: Android 8.0-10 (API 26-29) has a seccomp filter that kills
+// the process on unknown syscalls instead of returning -ENOSYS, and
+// some older Synology kernels reuse the new syscall numbers for
+// unrelated vendor syscalls, which silently runs the wrong thing.
+//
+// If the kernel release string can't be parsed, fall back to probing
+// futex_time64 with a no-op FUTEX_WAKE: the kernels that motivated
+// the version check above all report parseable uname strings, so
+// reaching the probing fallback generally means we are on neither,
+// and probing is the safest available signal.
 func configure64bitsTimeOn32BitsArchitectures() {
-	use64bitsTimeOn32bits = getKernelVersion().GE(5, 1)
+	if kv, ok := getKernelVersion(); ok {
+		use64bitsTimeOn32bits = kv.GE(5, 1)
+		return
+	}
+	use64bitsTimeOn32bits = probeFutexTime64()
+}
+
+// probeFutexTime64 reports whether the futex_time64 syscall is
+// available on the running kernel. It issues a FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE
+// with a wake count of 0, which is a no-op if the syscall exists and
+// returns -ENOSYS otherwise. timer_settime64 was added to the kernel
+// in the same release (Linux 5.1), so a single probe covers both.
+func probeFutexTime64() bool {
+	var word uint32
+	ret := futex_time64(unsafe.Pointer(&word), _FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 0, nil, nil, 0)
+	return ret != -_ENOSYS
 }
 
 //go:noescape
diff --git a/src/runtime/runtime_linux_test.go b/src/runtime/runtime_linux_test.go
index ab2452c9e72910..728d65a9d588b4 100644
--- a/src/runtime/runtime_linux_test.go
+++ b/src/runtime/runtime_linux_test.go
@@ -53,6 +53,36 @@ func TestMincoreErrorSign(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
+func TestParseRelease(t *testing.T) {
+	tests := []struct {
+		in                  string
+		major, minor, patch int
+		ok                  bool
+	}{
+		{"6.1.0", 6, 1, 0, true},
+		{"5.15.0-91-generic", 5, 15, 0, true},
+		{"4.19.0+", 4, 19, 0, true},
+		{"6.6.0-rc1", 6, 6, 0, true},
+		// Synology embedded Linux appends a platform identifier
+		// after an underscore.
+		{"3.4.35_hi3535", 3, 4, 35, true},
+		{"2.6.32_synology", 2, 6, 32, true},
+		{"3.10", 3, 10, 0, true},
+		// A single component is not enough; major+minor required.
+		{"3", 0, 0, 0, false},
+		{"3-rc1", 0, 0, 0, false},
+		{"", 0, 0, 0, false},
+		{"bogus", 0, 0, 0, false},
+	}
+	for _, tt := range tests {
+		major, minor, patch, ok := ParseRelease(tt.in)
+		if major != tt.major || minor != tt.minor || patch != tt.patch || ok != tt.ok {
+			t.Errorf("ParseRelease(%q) = (%d, %d, %d, %v); want (%d, %d, %d, %v)",
+				tt.in, major, minor, patch, ok, tt.major, tt.minor, tt.patch, tt.ok)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
 func TestKernelStructSize(t *testing.T) {
 	// Check that the Go definitions of structures exchanged with the kernel are
 	// the same size as what the kernel defines.