An alternatives to gdesklets, not too many dependencies, but of course, not too many desklets to choose from, compared to gdesklets.
apt-get install adesklets
# go to http://adesklets.sourceforge.net/desklets.html
# I recommend weather, doityourself, calender
# download a desklet from the web site, extract it, run the python script, control c
# it will register the desklet in your .adesklets,
# invoke the past desklets in your .adesklets
adesklets &
# look at ~/.adesklets for further configuration
