importing shape files nightmare!

I have two machines, suse and gentoo

suse:

select version();
PostgreSQL 8.0.3 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc (GCC) 3.3.5
20050117 (prerelease) (SUSE Linux)

select postgis_full_version();
POSTGIS="1.0.3" PROJ="Rel. 4.4.8, 3 May 2004" USE_STATS DBPROC="0.3.0"
RELPROC="0.3.0"

gentoo:

select version();
PostgreSQL 8.0.3 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC
i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc (GCC) 3.3.6 (Gentoo 3.3.6, ssp-3.3.6-1.0, pie-8.7.8)

select postgis_full_version();
POSTGIS="1.1.0CVS" GEOS="2.1.4" PROJ="Rel. 4.4.9, 29 Oct 2004" USE_STATS
DBPROC="0.3.1" RELPROC="0.3.1"

running:

shp2pgsql -c streets.shp streets | psql -d dbname

suse, no problem!

gentoo: ERROR: unterminated quoted string at or near
"'010500000001000000010...

trying:

shp2pgsql -D streets.shp streets dbname > streets.sql

suse, no problem!

gentoo:
Shapefile type: Arc
Postgis type: MULTILINESTRING[2]
Segmentation fault

finally:

Trying to import streets.sql generated on the suse machine into postgresql
running on the gentoo machine also fails:

psql:streets.sql:1350: invalid command \N

What is it with the gentoo installation? What should I upgrade or
downgrade to remedy this problems I'm having?

Please help, it is really important that I get this done and I'm really
stuck trying to solve it.

Kind Regards,
Christo Du Preez