Magento

HI all. I just have a quick question about Magento and e-commerce software in general. I’m relatively knew to designing sites but I would say that on a scale of beginner to expert I would say I’m an intermediate. I have some experience with running php and sql on linux. I was looking at the system requirements for Magento and it says that it needs(among other things) a linux environment, apache server and php/mysql. So my question is does magento create/output php files for the server? Could I create a site with magento on my linux and then, if I wanted too, upload the files to an outside server that uses php and I also could use an outside mysql database account? I’m just a little confused as to what type of files magento and e-commerce software in general create and what my options are for storing those files by way of server and using a database.

edit. Basic question is. Does magento create the html/php files to run on the server or is there actual software that runs on the server.