Linux - settings to start with...

1.   To bring back your Windows files as folder, you could user the "mount" command. Either you could use mount and then umount every time or, alternatively, you could just list your Windows drive in file /etc/fstab and all of them would be mounted _automagically_ at the system start...e.g. my /etc/fstab contain following for my Window drives: 

############################################################################### 
/dev/sda3      /mnt/WindowDirectories/G_Drive  ntfs-3g   defaults        1 1 1 
/dev/sda4      /mnt/WindowDirectories/H_Drive  ntfs-3g   defaults        1 1 1 
############################################################################### 

Here,
/dev/....    : Device - the hard disk (physically separate, or formatted)
/mnt...    : Location where you would do a "mount"
ntfs-3g   : Tells you how to interpret the data / format of the drives - the file-system type. Possible values could be vfat, nfs, ext4 etc...depending upon what you wish to load
defaults 1111: These are options - better do a man mount to understand these...defaults means that it uses the default options that are rw, suid, dev, exec, auto, nouser, and async.
#               :Last, but not the least - all comments start with this.
As usual a zillion thanks to: http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html, which tells us "How to edit and understand /etc/fstab".

2.   Second thing I prefer to install is VLC

rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
yum install vlc

3.   Google chorme
Step-1: Enable yum repository - create file /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo ,with following content (64 bit):

[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome - 64-bit
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

Step-2: Now, give following command:
#> yum install google-chrome

4.   Acrobat reader :

rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux

yum install AdobeReader_enu 

Now, it could be started as: #> acroread

5. Others....

cp libflashplayer_copy_to_usr_lib64_mozilaa_plugins /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
yum install-y  yum-fastestmirror
yum install -y vlc
yum install -y nspluginwrapper.i686 AdobeReader_enu
###may need yum --nogpgcheck install ................
yum install-y pidgin
yum install -y flash-plugin
yum install -y unrar
yum install -y gftp
yum install -y gnochm
#edit file /etc/yum.repos.d/skype.repo
#[skype]
#name=Skype Repository
#baseurl=http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/fedora/updates/i586/
#gpgkey=http://www.skype.com/products/skype/linux/rpm-public-key.asc
yum install -y --nogpgcheck skype

yum install -y filezilla

6. WINE - the Windows on Linux...is it!

yum install wine

7. Running _IE_ on Windows
Earlier it was ie4linux, but now "Winetricks" helps us:


wget http://winetricks.org/winetricks
chmod +x winetricks
mv winetricks /usr/local/bin

I.E. (installation) needs this:

yum install cabextract

Now, start winetricks, and go to the option "Install a Windows DLL or Component",Next panel would allow you to choose between IE6/7/8...wow, too much of choice, isn't it?

It may ask you to download dotnet20.exe into folder /root/.cache/winetricks/dotnet20 and then run this winetricks again (for IE installation).