Downloaded LinuxCNC - Not showing

Downloaded and then wrote separately to a SD card and a USB drive. I now cannot see the drives in the file directory. I can see them if I do lsusb. I can insert a clean USB drive and still it does not show in the file directory. Was attempting to run LinuxCNC as a standalone but it appears I have upset my pc.
Looks like a Mint problem? and any advise appreciated.

I was incorrect in that both USB sticks have had LinuxCNC installed creating my confusion? On start up I selected to boot from USB, even although I do not think I made them bootable. System boots up but into its normal partition and LinuxCNC does not show or do the drives. How can I gain entry into the USBs and the SD card to make them bootable/useable?

At the moment I am using Mint and do not wish to change to Debian. I baulked out of installing LinuxCNC in Graphical mode as i came to a point were partitions were being required. Last time I was here I lost all I had in Mint so am being very cautious. If I allow partitioning will Mint remain as is?

I am Scottish so language is english. I attempted to install LinuxCNC on Mint but got nowhere and gave up. I eventually wiped the disc and created two partitions one with Mint and the other with Debian and LinuxCNC and was creating files on Inkscape on Mint and then transferring them over to Debian with LinuxCNC and happily tested the files in demo..
Having given up with attempting to get LinuxCNC on Mint I tried to go the other way and put Inkscape on Debian but that turns out not to be possible if I wanted to use Gcodetools. All this results in me creating the two partitions which although cumbersome did work.
I followed the procedure to load LinuxCNC and thought all was good and well until I attempted to run the demo, resulting in the problem I am desperate to get help on. I created a file for a Gantry and followed exactly the instructions I used successfully previously but the program just fails to run. I am struggling to understand what I have done resulting in these problems.
Over and above I had problems with Gcodetools but was given excellent assistance and these now work. At the moment i am also getting help to sort out Inkcut which I had previously had running.
All the above are the part of my whole project and are interlinked so although I have spent a LOT of time I do not intend to give up as others use all these programs and there is no reason why I should not.
A bit long winded but hopefully you can see where I am going.

Right, I will take your advise and try and get LinuxCNC on Mint. I would be most grateful if you can assist me in the event of any hiccups as at the first error report I will stop

I ave started and all appeared to be going ok until New Kernal Install At "cat patch-4.8.11-rt7.patch | patch -p1" went round in circles with "cat patch-4.8.11-rt7.patch | patch -p1
The next patch would create the file Documentation/hwlat_detector.txt,
which already exists! Assume -R? [n]
Apply anyway? [n] n
Skipping patch.
1 out of 1 hunk ignored
can't find file to patch at input line 75
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:

---

|diff --git a/Documentation/sysrq.txt b/Documentation/sysrq.txt
|index 3a3b30ac2a75..9e0745cafbd8 100644
|--- a/Documentation/sysrq.txt
|+++ b/Documentation/sysrq.txt

---

File to patch:
Skip this patch? [y] y
Skipping patch.
1 out of 1 hunk ignored
The next patch would create the file Documentation/trace/histograms.txt,
which already exists! Assume -R? [n]

Previously I would have ignored this and went on to next step which probably created my problems. Advice please Hamish