diff --git a/dockers/base-cuda/Dockerfile b/dockers/base-cuda/Dockerfile
index 9153fd33ebef5..0e5268d311054 100644
--- a/dockers/base-cuda/Dockerfile
+++ b/dockers/base-cuda/Dockerfile
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ RUN \
     add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa && \
     apt-get install -y \
         python${PYTHON_VERSION} \
-        python${PYTHON_VERSION}-distutils \
+        python3-setuptools \
         python${PYTHON_VERSION}-dev \
     && \
     update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python${PYTHON_VERSION%%.*} python${PYTHON_VERSION%%.*} /usr/bin/python${PYTHON_VERSION} 1 && \
diff --git a/dockers/docs/Dockerfile b/dockers/docs/Dockerfile
index 46882c2dc50bf..ec590bf182ee2 100644
--- a/dockers/docs/Dockerfile
+++ b/dockers/docs/Dockerfile
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ RUN \
         dvipng \
         texlive-pictures \
         python3 \
-        python3-distutils \
+        python3-setuptools \
         python3-dev \
     && \
     update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3 1 && \
diff --git a/examples/fabric/reinforcement_learning/rl/utils.py b/examples/fabric/reinforcement_learning/rl/utils.py
index 7585eda616ee4..4c5a8066b359f 100644
--- a/examples/fabric/reinforcement_learning/rl/utils.py
+++ b/examples/fabric/reinforcement_learning/rl/utils.py
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import argparse
 import math
 import os
-from distutils.util import strtobool
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Optional, Union
 
 import gymnasium as gym
@@ -12,6 +11,23 @@
     from rl.agent import PPOAgent, PPOLightningAgent
 
 
+def strtobool(val):
+    """Convert a string representation of truth to true (1) or false (0).
+
+    True values are 'y', 'yes', 't', 'true', 'on', and '1'; false values are 'n', 'no', 'f', 'false', 'off', and '0'.
+    Raises ValueError if 'val' is anything else.
+
+    Note: taken from distutils after its deprecation.
+
+    """
+    val = val.lower()
+    if val in ("y", "yes", "t", "true", "on", "1"):
+        return 1
+    if val in ("n", "no", "f", "false", "off", "0"):
+        return 0
+    raise ValueError(f"invalid truth value {val!r}")
+
+
 def parse_args():
     parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
     parser.add_argument("--exp-name", type=str, default="default", help="the name of this experiment")