ABAP Advice for a college student

Hi everyone! I am a college student studying CS that is about to start an internship which involves entry level APAB programming. I have done minor research in SAP but I wanted to setup a box at home to practice basic ABAP programming before I begin. They assume no one knows anything about SAP so they do 2 weeks of training but I wanted to get a head start.

I have a clean box here with XP installed.

What do I install to get started in ABAP programming? I assume the application server? Does that include everything I need to get started?

Is WinXP the best OS for this? I am very proficient with Ubuntu so should I install that instead?

I believe we will be running WinXP so thats why I installed WinXP.

Any other advice?

Thanks!!