Mesa 7i96 driver/setup Plasma Table

As far as I can tell, Preempt-RT is completely enabled (error still says "Note: POSIX real time", no clue why); I did however discover that Stretch departs from eth(0/1) and instead uses, in my case, enp5s0 (enp6s0, enp8s0, enp0s31f6).

Could this be affecting the hm2_eth module in linuxcnc? I may be showing my ignorance here, I just can't for the life of me figure out why this is still an issue.

You had this before (which means no real time Preempt-RT kernel:
Note: Using POSIX non-realtime
Now you have this:
Note: Using POSIX realtime
This is correct

I suspect the "Connection refused" issue is something wrong with your network setup

what is the result of running the command:
ip a

on your machine?

Damn... how is this possible; what else do I need to do?

~$ ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp5s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 1c:6f:65:cd:65:12 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.0.30/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global dynamic enp5s0
valid_lft 66722sec preferred_lft 66722sec
inet6 fe80::b59e:571b:1798:c3ad/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

OK so it looks like your only Ethernet hardware is setup for the wrong address

Did you read the hm2_eth manual page about setting up a static IP address on the host?

Suggested host address is 10.10.10.1 if the 7I92 is setup for 10.10.10.10

haha I was just reading though them in order to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Pardon my ignorance. I'm going through the process now and I'm having a problem changing permissions in the network folder of the file system.

linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man9/hm2_eth.9.html

I was unable to add the script to the "setup" document in the "interfaces.d" (I'm assuming that's the document I need to modify, contextually it has an eth0 script)

I attempted to change permissions by using: chmod +rwx "interfaces-d", I was however denied permission.

the address will be changed 10.10.10.10

Please dont change the permissions/modes of any system file

The instructions in the hm2_eth manual page state

Configure network with static address
Add these lines to the file /etc/network/interfaces to configure eth1
with a static address:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.1.1
hardware-irq-coalesce-rx-usecs 0

You will have to change the ip address in the file to say 10.10.10.1 and probably change the device name, Also the "hardware-irq-coalesce-rx-usecs 0" is typically only appropriate for Intel MACs

to edit the interfaces file you use sudo:

sudo mousepad /etc/network/interfaces

You can also avoid all this and use the network manager to setup the MAC

Starting to get really frustrated... I'm getting the exact same error despite all of these efforts. I added the script to "interfaces" and made sure to change the address.

Will "hardware-irq-coalesce-rx-usecs 0" hurt if it's not an intel network card?

Still says "posix realtime"...

Ah okay, I thought it was supposed to say "preept-rt"

Good idea: I botched my dual boot anyway lol.

"posix realtime" is correct
"hardware-irq-coalesce-rx-usecs 0" will probably just cause an error with a Realtek MAC so really only for Intel and some Broadcom chips

what does ip a report now?