Arduino Nano not showing up in /dev
dmesg should be the tool to help you.

Run:

$ dmesg -w


Then hit return a few times (to get some blank lines). 

Next plug in your Nano.  Some text should appear on the screen, which will give you a clue as to what is going on.  I don't have a Nano to try with, but a typical working device would look something like:

[29125.599800] usb 9-1.4.1: new full-speed USB device number 13 using ehci-pci
[29125.694742] usb 9-1.4.1: New USB device found, idVendor=04d8, idProduct=0208
[29125.694747] usb 9-1.4.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[29125.694749] usb 9-1.4.1: Product: Lenny
[29125.694751] usb 9-1.4.1: Manufacturer: chipKIT
[29125.694753] usb 9-1.4.1: SerialNumber: CK1660A05353C5
[29125.695213] cdc_acm 9-1.4.1:1.0: This device cannot do calls on its own. It is not a modem.
[29125.695240] cdc_acm 9-1.4.1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[29125.695768] cdc_acm 9-1.4.1:1.2: This device cannot do calls on its own. It is not a modem.
[29125.695791] cdc_acm 9-1.4.1:1.2: ttyACM1: USB ACM device
[29125.697772] input: chipKIT Lenny as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.7/usb9/9-1/9-1.4/9-1.4.1/9-1.4.1:1.4/0003:04D8:0208.0004/input/input19
[29125.698394] hid-generic 0003:04D8:0208.0004: input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [chipKIT Lenny] on usb-0000:00:1a.7-1.4.1/input4


If it doesn't know what the device is it will give you a fraction of the information, and probably tell you it can't attach a driver.

If the device is faulty and not recognisable you will get messages similar to:

[29125.698394] usb 2-2.1: device not accepting address 5, error -71


If you get absolutely nothing displayed then it can't even recognise that anything has been attached to your computer.  Try different USB sockets and different USB cables to see if that helps.  

Note: some cheap USB cables used purely for charging small batteries don't have any data wires in them - just power. Using one of these will fail for sure.