Sorry to be slow getting back to this- Thanksgiving got in the way. Thanks for your response.
I discovered someplace else I should check to see if the drivers were loaded. They suggested
lsmod | grep ftdi_sio
If that got nothing back (and mine didn't) to try
sudo modprobe ftdi_sio
Seemed to do something.
gdsports:
Try the command lsusb to see one line descriptions of all USB devices.
After that a lsusb got me
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 093a:2510 Pixart Imaging, Inc. Optical Mouse
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Which doesn't seem to show what I need.
gdsports:
Another useful command is dmesg.
Tried a dmesg | tail and got
[ 60.032662] init: plymouth-stop pre-start process (2153) terminated with status 1
[ 67.309024] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[ 830.504151] type=1400 audit(1511833259.836:32): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/cups/backend/cups-pdf" pid=5263 comm="apparmor_parser"
[ 830.504164] type=1400 audit(1511833259.836:33): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=5263 comm="apparmor_parser"
[ 2293.830468] Web Content[7630]: segfault at e5e5e669 ip 8a9aef99 sp bfce5b20 error 5 in nouveau_dri.so[8a775000+403000]
[ 7828.504369] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[ 7828.504386] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 7828.504399] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 7828.543865] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
[ 7828.544065] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
which seemed very encouraging.
I then tried
ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*
and
ls -l /dev/ttyACM*
But got back
ls: cannot access /dev/ttyUSB*: No such file or directory
and
ls: cannot access /dev/ttyACM*: No such file or directory[/code]
I even tried
sudo usermod -a -G tty yourUserName
but got the same no such file or directory message.
I rebooted everything but still no joy. Any of that jump out at you and mean anything? Am I closer maybe?