Hi,
I've followed the Linode articles and set up my Ubuntu 12.04 server. Everything is working fine so far.

I have installed Wordpress and I can see my basic Wordpress installation working ok in my browser. However, when I try to upgrade something (a plugin, a theme, etc), I get sent to a page requesting my Connection Information:
Hostname - localhost
FTP username - username I use in Filezilla (SFTP mode)
FTP password - password I use in Filezilla (SFTP mode)
Connection Type - FTP or FTPS (SSL), I choose FTPS (SSL)

All my development so far has been on a local WAMP server so I never got sent to this page before.

When I fill out my connection information details, I get the following error:
Failed to connect to FTP Server localhost:21

Any ideas? Considering how popular Wordpress is, I'm hoping someone has had the same problem as me.
I'm a novice at servers and linux, but I'm learning as I go along.
Thanks

You probably haven't got a FTP server installed. The best way to install plugins/do upgrades is to temporarily change the wordpress file ownership to that of the PHP user which is normally www-data.

So something like chown -R www-data /path/to/wordpress
Then to put it back chown -R youruser /path/to/wordpress; chown -R www-data /path/to/wordpress/wp-content/uploads
(Note the uploads directory always needs to be writable by the PHP user if you support file uploads).

_________________
Paid support
How to ask for help
1. Give details of your problem
2. Post any errors
3. Post relevant logs.
4. Don't hide details i.e. your domain, it just makes things harder
5. Be polite or you'll be eaten by a grue

Thanks obs. That works
I was hoping there was a more permanent solution, but I can live with this.