Localhost asks for FTP credentials

My LOCAL install of wordpress is not letting me do anything on the administrative back-end. It asks for FTP credentials when I shouldn’t need FTP credentials at all. I’ve searched extensively for an answer to this, but I can’t seem to find one. It all boils down to file permissions, but the issue is, I can’t tell what the permissions should be. I have tried 777, 775, 755 and changing the user/group to the apache user/group, but to no avail.

I’m using Fedora 18 and Apache works, and mysql works. I just can’t make the install work without the credentials. And It’s confusing because on no other local installation on any other OS would I be confronted with this error in file permissions.

If any of you could help, it would be much appreciated.