title: How to create a Python 3.8 virtual environment in Ubuntu 16.04
body: <p>In Ubuntu 16.04 the latest release of Python3 is 3.5. If I just do <code>virutalenv venv</code> it would create a new virtual environment using Python 3.5.</p>
  <p>I followed the instructions in <a href="https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-python-3-8-on-ubuntu-18-04/" rel="noreferrer">https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-python-3-8-on-ubuntu-18-04/</a> and installed Python 3.8 with <code>apt</code> from the deadsnakes PPA. But I am still not able to create a Python 3.8 virtual environment. If I do <code>virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3.8</code>, I got this:</p>
  <pre><code>user@host:~$ virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3.8 venv
  RuntimeError: failed to query /usr/bin/python3.8 with code 1 err: 'Traceback (most recent call last):\n  File &quot;/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/virtualenv/discovery/py_info.py&quot;, line 16, in &lt;module&gt;\n    from distutils import dist\nImportError: cannot import name \'dist\' from \'distutils\' (/usr/lib/python3.8/distutils/__init__.py)\n'
  </code></pre>