Installation Guide

This guide covers the process of building and installing intel-undervolt from source.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the necessary build tools installed on your system. This typically includes:

  • A C compiler (e.g., gcc)
  • make
  • pkg-config (required for systemd or elogind integration)

On a Debian/Ubuntu-based system, you can install these with:

sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config

Build Process

The build process consists of three main steps: configuring, compiling, and installing.

1. Configure

The configure script prepares the build environment and allows you to enable or disable specific features. Run it from the root of the source directory.

./configure

You can customize the installation by passing options to the script. Here are the most common ones:

Flag Description
--enable-systemd Build and install systemd service files.
--enable-elogind Build and install an elogind sleep script.
--enable-openrc Build and install an OpenRC service file.

By default, all of these integrations are disabled. You should enable the ones relevant to your system.

For example, to build with systemd support: 

./configure --enable-systemd

You can also customize installation directories:

  • --bindir=/path/to/bin (Default: /usr/bin)
  • --sysconfdir=/path/to/etc (Default: /etc)
  • --unitdir=/path/to/units (For systemd services)

2. Compile

Once configuration is complete, compile the source code using make.

make

This will create the intel-undervolt executable and any necessary service files in the current directory.

3. Install

Install the compiled binary, default configuration file, and any enabled service files onto your system.

sudo make install

This command will place files in the following locations (using default paths):

  • /usr/bin/intel-undervolt: The main executable.
  • /etc/intel-undervolt.conf: The default configuration file.
  • System service files (if enabled), e.g., /etc/systemd/system/.

Post-Installation: Service Configuration

After installation, the tool is ready to be used, but your settings will not be applied automatically. You need to configure the configuration file and enable the appropriate system service to apply settings on boot or when waking from sleep.

  • First, review and edit the configuration file at /etc/intel-undervolt.conf. See the Configuration Guide for details.
  • Next, learn how to enable and manage the system services by reading the Service Management guide.