How are you going to connect to the internet, ethernet card or modem (hardware or winmodem) this determines the setup method used. For the e-mail you just have to configure whichever e-mail client you want to use with the settings you got from your ISP just like you would have to in windows.

As for the laptop it depends on the support for the hardware in the machine itself what is the make, model post as much detail as possible it helps in giving you a proper answer (always a good procedure with any question).