diff --git a/package/i2c-tools/0001-py-smbus-Use-setuptools-instead-of-distutils.patch b/package/i2c-tools/0001-py-smbus-Use-setuptools-instead-of-distutils.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..63b2a7f82f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/package/i2c-tools/0001-py-smbus-Use-setuptools-instead-of-distutils.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+From cf3541b8a7ed50782edd05836020d31230fb86c6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
+From: Ross Burton <ross.burton@arm.com>
+Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 12:08:53 +0100
+Subject: py-smbus: Use setuptools instead of distutils
+
+As per [1], distutils is deprecated in Python 3.10 and will be removed
+entirely in Python 3.12.
+
+As setuptools is essentially an enhanced version of distutils, it's
+trivial to port to that.
+
+[1] https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.10.html#distutils-deprecated
+
+Signed-off-by: Ross Burton <ross.burton@arm.com>
+Signed-off-by: Jean Delvare <jdelvare@suse.de>
+
+Upstream: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/i2c-tools/i2c-tools.git/commit/?id=cf3541b8a7ed50782edd05836020d31230fb86c6
+
+Signed-off-by: Bernd Kuhls <bernd@kuhls.net>
+---
+ py-smbus/setup.py | 2 +-
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
+
+diff --git a/py-smbus/setup.py b/py-smbus/setup.py
+index 28a4500..26db33a 100644
+--- a/py-smbus/setup.py
++++ b/py-smbus/setup.py
+@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
+ #!/usr/bin/env python
+ 
+-from distutils.core import setup, Extension
++from setuptools import setup, Extension
+ 
+ setup(	name="smbus",
+ 	version="1.1",
+-- 
+cgit 
+
diff --git a/package/i2c-tools/i2c-tools.mk b/package/i2c-tools/i2c-tools.mk
index 5c9ce26628..adccd9475d 100644
--- a/package/i2c-tools/i2c-tools.mk
+++ b/package/i2c-tools/i2c-tools.mk
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ I2C_TOOLS_MAKE_OPTS = EXTRA=eeprog
 I2C_TOOLS_INSTALL_STAGING = YES
 
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_PYTHON3),y)
-I2C_TOOLS_DEPENDENCIES += python3
+I2C_TOOLS_DEPENDENCIES += host-python-setuptools python3
 endif
 
 ifeq ($(BR2_STATIC_LIBS),y)
@@ -28,23 +28,23 @@ endif
 # Build/install steps mirror the distutil python package type in the python package
 # infrastructure
 ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_PYTHON3),y)
-# BASE_ENV taken from PKG_PYTHON_DISTUTILS_ENV in package/pkg-python.mk
+# BASE_ENV taken from PKG_PYTHON_SETUPTOOLS_ENV in package/pkg-python.mk
 I2C_TOOLS_PYTHON_BASE_ENV = \
-	$(PKG_PYTHON_DISTUTILS_ENV) \
+	$(PKG_PYTHON_SETUPTOOLS_ENV) \
 	CFLAGS="$(TARGET_CFLAGS) -I../include"
 
 define I2C_TOOLS_BUILD_PYSMBUS
 	(cd $(@D)/py-smbus; \
 	$(I2C_TOOLS_PYTHON_BASE_ENV) \
 		$(HOST_DIR)/bin/python setup.py build \
-		$(PKG_PYTHON_DISTUTILS_BUILD_OPTS))
+		$(PKG_PYTHON_SETUPTOOLS_BUILD_OPTS))
 endef
 
 define I2C_TOOLS_INSTALL_PYSMBUS
 	(cd $(@D)/py-smbus; \
 	$(I2C_TOOLS_PYTHON_BASE_ENV) \
 		$(HOST_DIR)/bin/python setup.py install \
-		$(PKG_PYTHON_DISTUTILS_INSTALL_TARGET_OPTS))
+		$(PKG_PYTHON_SETUPTOOLS_INSTALL_TARGET_OPTS))
 endef
 
 endif # BR2_PACKAGE_PYTHON3