Because distutils.Version is deprecated, we have our own _compare_version function (https://github.com/mne-tools/mne-python/blob/main/mne/fixes.py#L32-L55). However, I was wondering (1) why this is in fixes and (2) why we do not use packaging.version.Version instead (which according to the DeprecationWarning is the recommended replacement). I'm happy to implement the changes (and probably move it back to utils?) if you think it makes sense. @hoechenberger WDYT?

Edit: Then we could also remove the corresponding warning filter.