You can install gDesklets from you package manager or download the binaries. After installation you can start it from your start menu, it was listed under accessories in my case. You can type gdesklets in your terminal alternatively. After you have started the daemon you get the gDesklets shell with a nice number of available widgets.

There are mostly normal widgets availible, like calenders or system information, but also things like verse of the day and dinocam. You can also view a list of availible widgets at the Gdesklets website, the list is located here.

There is also a KDE widget tool called SuperKaramba, but i haven’t had the change to test it yet so i cannot say at this point if it’s better, but i’ll handle SuperKaramba tomorrow and tell which has my preference.