Comment 7 for bug 1364503

I had the same issue on ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10:

'''
Job for i8kmon.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status i8kmon.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript i8kmon, action "start" failed.
● i8kmon.service - LSB: Dell fan/cpu-temperature monitor
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/i8kmon; generated; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Son 2017-02-12 12:46:16 CET; 13ms ago
     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
  Process: 6573 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/i8kmon start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Feb 12 12:46:16 roel-XPS-15-9560 systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Dell fan/cpu-temp....
Feb 12 12:46:16 roel-XPS-15-9560 i8kmon[6573]: * Starting Dell fan/cpu-temp...n
Feb 12 12:46:16 roel-XPS-15-9560 i8kmon[6573]: ...fail!
Feb 12 12:46:16 roel-XPS-15-9560 systemd[1]: i8kmon.service: Control process...1
Feb 12 12:46:16 roel-XPS-15-9560 systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: Dell fan/c....
Feb 12 12:46:16 roel-XPS-15-9560 systemd[1]: i8kmon.service: Unit entered fa....
Feb 12 12:46:16 roel-XPS-15-9560 systemd[1]: i8kmon.service: Failed with res....
Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.
dpkg: error processing package i8kutils (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 i8kutils
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
'''

After doing the sudo modprobe i8k force=1 I could however install i8kutils without error.