Mesa 7I96

What's the easiest way to connect to this board? When selecting from the networking on the home screen it connects, and then proceeds to disconnnect itself. Either that or it just doesn't connect whatsoever, after attempting for a bit. I've read around, and have been unsuccessful in locating a solution.
Obligatory, I'm pretty new to all of this.

Have you read this thread ?

forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/3276...t-board?limitstart=0

Most initial issues with Mesa Ethernet FPGA cards are network setup related

You need:

1. A dedicated Ethernet port on the host PC
2. This port needs to be setup with a static IP address (IPV4)

Typically the host port will be setup for 192.168.1.1 for a Ethernet FPGA card at IP address 192.168.1.121 or
10.10.10.1 for a Ethernet FPGA card at IP address 10.10.10.10.
10.10.10.10 is usually a better option for the Ethernet FPGA card since it does not overlap existing NAT ranges.

Note that this setup is basic Linux network setup and not specific to LinuxCNC or the Ethernet FPGA cards.
The hm2_eth manual page a a very short description of doing this setup in the etc/network/interfaces
file. You can also use the net manager GUI to set this up.