Linux bootstrap script fails on both outdated and newish distros

I tried to run the bootstrap script on Lubuntu 18.04 and Debian 12 (in a VM, if it matters), but neither of them had python3.8-dev as an available package (18.04 had 3.6 and 3.7, Debian had 3.11), which prevented pycairo from building, and at that point I stopped trying to force the issue.

The deadsnakes PPA didn't help either, as I was unable to add it in the Debian VM, and it only supports Ubuntu>=20.04, not 18.04.

I eventually tried (in the Debian VM) to do everything listed in the script with python 3.11 (as well as installing the packages related to cairo itself, which would probably be good to add to the script), and it ended up working perfectly! (at least it did as far as I know, I don't currently have anything to test the ligatures, though the build succeded with no errors)

Since it will work with other python versions, could the script be changed to accomodate them?

Start by inspecting the bootstrap script and its Python and Cairo package requirements, then reproduce the setup on Lubuntu 18.04 and Debian 12 as described. Done means the script works with the available Python versions and includes any required Cairo packages without relying on an unavailable or unsupported PPA.