stop relying on distutils (will no longer be available in Python 3.12)

[boegel]

distutils is deprecated since Python 3.10, will be removed in Python 3.12; see https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0632

Places we rely on distutils currently:

• from distutils.version import LooseVersion (framework + easyblocks)
  • we need a replacement to do software version comparison
  • attempt was made in vendor distutils.version.LooseVersion as easybuild.tools.LooseVersion (since distutils is deprecated in Python 3.10) #3794, but that has bitrotted a bit looks promising...
  • can/should we come up with a better solution than just copy-pasting LooseVersion from Python stdlib into EasyBuild?
  • maybe infix operators like |before| (see also http://tomerfiliba.com/blog/Infix-Operators/)?
• from distutils.version import StrictVersion in easybuild/tools/modules.py + tests
• in setup.py, to avoid depending on setuptools
  • it looks like setuptools will be a necesary evil (see also drop requirement for setuptools as runtime dependency #2836)
• from distutils.util import strtobool in easybuild/framework/easyconfig/types.py

[boegel]

All done, see #4484

[haampie]

@boegel can you reopen? there are still distutils remnants

easybuild-framework/setup.py

Lines 35 to 36 in d700144

	from distutils import log
	from distutils.core import setup

having setuptools installed does not mean that distutils can be imported.

See cython/cython#5754 (comment)

[boegel]

Let's follow up in #4478, I've re-opened that, maybe we overlooked something indeed...

@haampie Thanks for raising this!

[boegel]

fixed with #4478