[chef] Can Chef be used for remote OS installation?

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Can I remotely install Operating System (Linux) on physical/virtual system
using Chef?

I am new to Chef world ( & also to the configuration management). I have gone
through Chef documentation (Client-Server / Solo) from opscode.com. What I
understood is that either Chef-Client or Chef-Solo has to be present on the
system (Node) where someone wants to install package or configure something. 

One way I can think of is using SCRIPT resource where all logic will be inside
script (e.g. bash) & will be called through some recipe. But then I think its
not the Chef way !

Thanks,
Aditya