> 
> I have a little kingdel box that has 5 actual, 9 pin serial ports. I am working with arduino and need my active usb port to show up as a com port, but it doesn't. 
>

Not particularly clear on what this means, where the USB is, etc. But, if you
are going USB-serial with an FTDi based chip (on the cable), Linux will see
it immediately as a "COM port" and setup a /dev/ttySx for it. (The device
permissions will be as the distro decides, etc.)
 
> ls /dev/tty* does not list any usb devices. Is there a way to make the usb port a com port in this case? 
> 

USB ports cannot just act as COM ports. They need the kernel to treat
whatever is attached to that USB port as a device with an associated driver.
If you plug a USB device to a running Linux kernel it will find it, and if
it is a healthy one it should show up  with 'lsusb', like this:

iznogoud% lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0bda:0328 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 413c:2011 Dell Computer Corp. Multimedia Pro Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 413c:1005 Dell Computer Corp. Multimedia Pro Keyboard Hub
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0424:4060 Standard Microsystems Corp. Ultra Fast Media Reader
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0424:2640 Standard Microsystems Corp. USB 2.0 Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:2514 Standard Microsystems Corp. USB 2.0 Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0461:4d51 Primax Electronics, Ltd 0Y357C PMX-MMOCZUL (B) [Dell Laser Mouse]
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
iznogoud%