New Project with Mesa 7I96 and THCAD-05

Ahh I see let me see if i can figure this out

Whats the easiest way to do this since I have liniux running right now and hooked up to internet? Do i need to have a usb boot program?

I would start again. Save your config somewhere safe. I'd just copy it to Google Drive but I guess a USB stick would do.
Then I would install the Stretch PREMPT_RT ISO and install V 2.8

But one of the unofficial ISOs might come with V 2.8 installed already.

Just be aware that the PREMPT_RT might increase latency to such an extent that new PC hardware is required... Thats what I found anyway.... but I was on 32bit hardware..

What program in linuxcnc can I use to make a file bootable or just to upgrade from m y current version?

I always go back to Windows and use win32diskimager

The file was large and took forever to download and for nothing lol. I ran through win32disk and it took about 20 minutes to write it and I tried to boot from it but wont do anything. I put it back to see whats installed and it show some other stuff not the .iso file. Not sure what step i missed I tried renaming the file to .img and still didnt work.