if theres anything i learned on this site its that nobody wants to sit here and teach you everything. you need to read the FAQ. It will tell you mostly anything you need to know. all you need is an hour or so to read some things and you should know enough to get started.
I will help you out the best I can.
Potting Soil: I use miracle grow. Its PH balanced and has nutes added to it. If your going to use miracle grow, DONT use nutes unless your experienced. You could burn the plant. When your shopping for a soil/medium look for something thats PH balanced without any nutes added to it. Look for something that says it has no weeds. you want an indoor/outdoor mix. not too heavy with sands but something light that will retain a good amount of water. Theres soils with cocoanut fibre in them which allows for breathing and healthy rooting.
Lighting: This is really your choice. You will need 2 different types of lighting, one for vegging. and one for flowering. there are blue and red spectrums. blue spectrum is good for vegging, and red it good for flowering. You can go to home depot and buy a powerbar, some Y splitters for light sockets, and an attachment for the Y splitter to plug into the power bar. by doing this you can have up to 12 CFL lightbulbs on one powerbar. the more the better. CFL's are good because they put out like a traditional 100 watt bulb but dont get as hot and only actually use less than half of the wattage as a traditional light bulb. CFL's are great for vegging however you will want to look into getting a high pressure sodium (HPS) light with ballast for flowering.
You will need to construct some sort of grow box. the sizes will depend on how large you want to grow your plants and how much space you have. There are plenty of ways to build a grow box. i use cheap plywood. ive seen computer cases, closets, cupboards, and even a cat/dog carrier.
I hope this information helps. Take some pictures if you can of the area you would like to use and let me know what kind of budget you have and I will give you any more advice i have to offer.
I still advise you read the grow faq. I am still a beginner grower, but ive given you the information i know to the best of my knowledge...
happy growing!
heres a link to the growfaq!
https://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=faq
