March 30, 2005 7:30 AM PST

Lexmark printer compatibility with Mac OS X 10.3.x

by CNET staff

An increasing number of readers are reporting issues with Lexmark printers under various iterations of Mac OS X 10.3.x.

MacFixIt reader Jonathan Williamson writes:

"I have a Lexmark X83 'multifunction' printer/scanner/copier. I tried to Install the Lexmark X83 drivers it doesn't work. I called Lexmark and they told me that this printer is not supported under newest Mac OS X 10.3.8. I called Apple, and they told me Lexmark has to write a driver. I now have a printer I can not print to."

Meanwhile, posters to an Apple discussion thread are noting similar issues with Lexmark devices.

One poster, Matthew Shomphe, reports periodic freezes that were apparently caused by the Lexmark X83 driver. Like Jonathan's case above, Matthew was told by Lexmark's technical support team that the device was incompatible with Mac OS X 10.3.x.

Matthew wrote:

"I was having problems where my computer would freeze up periodically; about once a week. The freeze was total -- no input devices would work. I won't bore you with the details of what I've tried in terms of troubleshooting, but while perusing the system.log, I saw a reference to Lexmark X83 Monitor.crash.log. Here is an excerpt of that file: dyld: /Applications/Lexmark X83/X83 Scan & Copy.app/Contents/Monitor/Lexmark X83 Monitor can't open library: OASISMDMX.dylib (No such file or directory, errno = 2)

"Lexmark's response: The drivers for Panther are currently not available. I apologize for any inconvenience that may have been caused to you. We cannot give any specific date regarding release of drivers."

Using gimp-print In some cases, you may be able to avoid system stability problems or an inability to print with Lexmark printers under Mac OS X 10.3.x by using the gimp-print drivers -- if your Lexmark model is supported.

Currently, the only Lexmark printers supported by gimp-print are the following: