Force VESA driver in Ubuntu 16.10

My Ubuntu 16.10 uses i915 driver. For some reasons I have troubles with it. So I want to force X to use VESA.

I tried:

1. blacklist i915 in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf. Then sudo update-initramfs -u. Doesn't work.

2. GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash modprobe.blacklist=i915" in /etc/default/grub. Then update-grub2. Doesn't work

3. Added new file 20-foo.conf in /usr/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d with content:

   Section "Device"
       Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
       Driver          "vesa"
   EndSection
   

Doesn't work.

Guys, how on the Earth one could make an OS that requires such an effort just to switch video driver? Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

I had the same issue with a different card and Ubuntu 16.04.
I had luck appending a kernel parameter at boot: vga=791
The vga parameter sets the framebuffer to VESA mode 791 (1024x768 16bit).
To add kernel parameters: this answer or the wiki.