Sorry if I appear dense, but is this an operating system, or a program which runs on linux, or something else entirely? Also, presumably it needs to know where

Sorry if I appear dense, but is this an operating system, or a program which runs on linux, or something else entirely? Also, presumably it needs to know where it originally came from. Can an installation of Samizdat create an installation disk for another user? I'm just a bit confused as to what it's for, despite having read the article.