Thanks Diego,
Was finally able to connect to Linux after reformatting the card again and loading the 1.0.2 image again.
Followed some of the instructions from https://communities.intel.com/message/238656#238656 where it was much easier to get the IPv6 address instead. Am connected! Tried it earlier but reformatting seems to have helped.
As for your 2nd question I was connecting to my PC directly.
Now off to try some Python