hai!

im using FC8. i want to know how to reduce the no of lines displayed under the icon in gnome.........cos its some time bit annoying.....also .......how to display the filename only after the mouse is hovered on the icon.....

You get extra lines if the name is too long. Use a shorter name or a longer icon.

Gnome also displays extra information under icons in different views. At 75% you only get the name. You can change this behavior from edit > preferences in any nautilus window. Read through the tabs.

The yellow messages which drop down on mouseover are called "tooltips". Edit this behavior by rt-clicking on the icon and selecting "preferences".

In general: gnome is pretty consistent about this - most all things can be modified from "preferences" in the context (rt-click) menu or "edit > preferences".