A linear stability analysis is performed for a horizontal layer of a binary liquid of which solely the solute evaporates into an inert gas, the latter being assumed to be insoluble in the liquid. In particular, a water-ethanol system in contact with air is considered, with the evaporation of water being neglected (which can be justified for a certain humidity of the air). External constraints on the system are introduced by imposing fixed "ambient" mass fraction and temperature values at a certain effective distance above the free liquid-gas interface. The temperature is the same as at the bottom of the liquid layer, where, besides, a fixed mass fraction of the solute is presumed to be maintained. Proceeding from a (quasi-)stationary reference solution, neutral (monotonic) stability curves are calculated in terms of solutal/thermal Marangoni/Rayleigh numbers as functions of the wavenumber for different values of the ratio of the gas and liquid layer thicknesses. The results are also presented in terms of the critical values of the liquid layer thickness as a function of the thickness of the gas layer. The solutal and thermal Rayleigh and Marangoni effects are compared to one another. For a water-ethanol mixture of 10 wt.% ethanol, it appears that the solutal Marangoni effect is by far the most important instability mechanism. Furthermore, its global action can be described within a Pearson-like model, with an appropriately defined Biot number depending on the wavenumber. On the other hand, it is also shown that, if taken into account, water evaporation has only minor quantitative consequences upon the results for this predominant, solutal Marangoni mechanism. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.