I checked a couple of other distros I run. In Arch Linux distutils/util.py is provided by the base "python" pkg. In openSUSE Tumbleweed it is provided by python3-base. So among my installations, Debian Buster and Sid are the odd ducks in that they require an optional pkg installation to provide distutils/util.py.
-- James Ronald Lovell <ron163...@gmail.com> Huntsville, AL, USA
