I recently purchased an FTDI USB to serial converter - FT232RL. However I could not use it properly in Windows. With some googling, I could find a way to use it under linux. Following are the steps to be used in Ubuntu to get it working. Open a terminal and type the following commands. sudo modprobe ftdi_sio sudo chmod 666 /sys/bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/new_id nano /sys/bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/new_id In the file that got opened, type 0403 8a8a and save it. The number can be found by typing lsusb in another terminal. Now unplug and re-plug the module. Type ls /dev and you should see /ttyUSB0 in the list. Now use some serial terminal (like screen) to view the data ! For opening a screen session, the following command is used. Here 115200 is the baud rate. sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200