setuptools 78.0.1 incompatibility

[aristidesz]

Describe the bug
Setuptools released version 78.0.1, which removed functionality previously marked for deprecation and this caused an issue with the current package version.

To reproduce
Use setuptools version 78.0.1 and try installing the package. I was using pip 25.0.1 and python 3.11.9

Expected behavior
The package should avoid relying on deprecated setuptools functionality to prevent installation failures.