[NTLUG:Discuss] Display managers, rhgb and whatever the SuSE equivalent is

[Leroy Tennison]

My understanding of the display managers is that, once they authenticate 
the user, they spawn an X session.  I was thinking about this and came 
up with a question which also applies to the Red Hat Graphical boot 
option and it's SuSE equivalent:  If these programs run prior to X 
(which certainly rhgb and SuSE's graphical display do), what are they 
using for their graphical display?  How are they figuring out what video 
card, mouse and monitor exist and how to present on them?  I could 
understand a DM looking at an X configuration but the other environments 
have no assurance there there is even an X environment.  Anybody know?