SUMMARY STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Download the Asymptote example (http://asymptote.sourceforge.net/doc/LaTeX-usage.html#LaTeX-usage) 2. Try to QuickBuild or preview OBSERVED RESULT Build failed. EXPECTED RESULT Build success. The appropriate success of commands succeeds from command-line, i.e.: pdflatex latexusage asy latexusage-*.asy pdflatex latexusage SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: 5.15.4 (available in About System) KDE Plasma Version: 5.15.4 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.56.0 Qt Version: 5.12.2 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TeX Live 2017
Sorry, turns out to be a problem with the Gentoo ebuild for asymptote-2.48-r1; downgrading to the stable 2.41-r1 fixed the build process.