diff --git a/lib/libspl/asm-generic/atomic.S b/lib/libspl/asm-generic/atomic.S
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7550fd92b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/libspl/asm-generic/atomic.S
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+Stub file for 'make dist' distdir rule.
+
+This file is directly referenced by ../Makefile.am as a source
+file and thus will be expected by 'make dist'.  To avoid this
+being a problem this stub file was added.  It will be overwritten
+at build time based on assmebly generated from atomic.c.