It depends on the distribution. On the ones I'm most familiar with - Debian-derived distributions, such as Ubuntu - the ntfs-3g package has to be installed. Luckily this is usually the case.

The corresponding storage device should appear in the graphical interface, and clicking on it is enough. If you want to mount from the terminal, just run:

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/storage_drive /mnt/mount_point

This must be done as root. So if you are on Debian, you have to put the sudo command in front of it.