gh-92584: Remove the distutils package (#99061)

Remove the distutils package. It was deprecated in Python 3.10 by PEP
632 "Deprecate distutils module". For projects still using distutils
and cannot be updated to something else, the setuptools project can
be installed: it still provides distutils.

* Remove Lib/distutils/ directory
* Remove test_distutils
* Remove references to distutils
* Skip test_check_c_globals and test_peg_generator since they use
  distutils

.gitignore

@@ -41,7 +41,6 @@ gmon.out
 .DS_Store
 
 *.exe
-!Lib/distutils/command/*.exe
 
 # Ignore core dumps... but not Tools/msi/core/ or the like.
 core
@@ -58,7 +57,6 @@ Doc/.venv/
 Doc/env/
 Doc/.env/
 Include/pydtrace_probes.h
-Lib/distutils/command/*.pdb
 Lib/lib2to3/*.pickle
 Lib/site-packages/*
 !Lib/site-packages/README.txt

Doc/conf.py

@@ -197,7 +197,6 @@
 coverage_ignore_modules = [
     r'[T|t][k|K]',
     r'Tix',
-    r'distutils.*',
 ]
 
 coverage_ignore_functions = [

Doc/whatsnew/3.12.rst

@@ -70,6 +70,8 @@ Important deprecations, removals or restrictions:
 
 * :pep:`623`, Remove wstr from Unicode
 
+* :pep:`632`, Remove the ``distutils`` package.
+
 Improved Error Messages
 =======================
 
@@ -401,6 +403,12 @@ although there is currently no date scheduled for their removal.
 Removed
 =======
 
+* Remove the ``distutils`` package. It was deprecated in Python 3.10 by
+  :pep:`632` "Deprecate distutils module". For projects still using
+  ``distutils`` and cannot be updated to something else, the ``setuptools``
+  project can be installed: it still provides ``distutils``.
+  (Contributed by Victor Stinner in :gh:`92584`.)
+
 * Removed many old deprecated :mod:`unittest` features:
 
   - A number of :class:`~unittest.TestCase` method aliases: