Hello,
GMail has all the info right on their site.
Thunderbird 2.0 - Help Center
Yahoo and hotmail you will need plugins to get them working. They do not work by default with any email client.
gAttach: use Gmail as your system’s default mail client - review & download link | freewaregenius.com
Gattach might help as well. But you should be able to set that up by default.
yAttach!
Yattach should get your yahoo working.
As for hotmail. I do not know off hand how to connect it to Thunderbird. I use Outlook 2007 and know how to connect to that. I have not tested Thunderbird since it was early version 1.0.
Thunderbirds site has a FAQ with some info about how to connect with yahoo and others.
Thunderbird Help: Thunderbird FAQ
Cheers,
Mak