setuptools 70.0.0 results in ImportError: cannot import name 'packaging' from 'pkg_resources'

[noralutz]

Describe the bug

NeMo uses the deprecated pkg_resources component of setuptools in the Megatron GPT model. As of yesterday's v70.0.0 release of Setuptools, this change
removes packaging from being imported by pkg_resouces and results in the above ImportError

Steps/Code to reproduce bug

1. install setuptools v70.0.0
2. install NeMo 1.23
3. Attempt to import nemo.collections.nlp.models.language_modeling import MegatronGPTPromptLearningModel

Expected behavior

Model to import with no ImportError

Environment overview (please complete the following information)

• Environment location: Cloud (GCP Vertex Workbench instance)
• Method of NeMo install: pip install nemo-toolkit[all]==1.23

Environment details

If NVIDIA docker image is used you don't need to specify these.
Otherwise, please provide:

• OS version: Debian 11
• PyTorch version: 2.0.1
• Python version: 3.10.9

[yonas-g]

Did you find a solution for this error

[tfogal]

Did you find a solution for this error

Just pin the setuptools version, e.g. python3 -m pip install setuptools==69.5.1

[crcrpar]

why not switching to packaging?

[github-actions]

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[github-actions]

This issue was closed because it has been inactive for 7 days since being marked as stale.