Hard to see the difference in the formating that shows in the answer let me try again:

# User specific aliases and functions
uid=`id|sed 's/uid=\([0-9]*\)\(.*$\)/\1/'`
if [ {$uid} = "0" ]
then
    P="SU: # "
else
    P="$ "
fi

# 
case "${TERM}" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PS1="[\u@\h: \w\a ]
${P}"
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

This doesn't work, here is what works:

    # User specific aliases and functions
uid=`id|sed 's/uid=\([0-9]*\)\(.*$\)/\1/'`
if [ {$uid} = "0" ]
then
    P="SU: # "
else
    P="$ "
fi

# 
case "${TERM}" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PS1="[\u@\h: \w\a ]\n${P}"
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

Now you can see the subtle difference!

My prompt contained an explicit newline within the variable definition and apparently bash no longer will accept that. My prompt definition in .bashrc was as follows:

User specific aliases and functions

uid=id|sed 's/uid=\([0-9]*\)\(.*$\)/\1/' if [ {$uid} = "0" ] then P="SU: # " else P="$ " fi

case "${TERM}" in xterm|rxvt) PS1="[\u@\h: \w\a ] ${P}" ;; *) ;; esac

This worked probably sinced I started using Linux (about 1997) but now it has to be defined like this:

# User specific aliases and functions uid=id|sed 's/uid=\([0-9]*\)\(.*$\)/\1/' if [ {$uid} = "0" ] then P="SU: # " else P="$ " fi

case "${TERM}" in xterm|rxvt) PS1="[\u@\h: \w\a ]\n${P}" ;; *) ;; esac

I should have spent more time troubleshooting before posting but I was pressed for time and let it fly. Sorry!!