However, Conky works just fine in Unity, and a lot of what he wants to do can
be done in Conky.

Here's the "guts" of the .conkyrc file for my desktop:
TEXT
Gord's Minty Cinnamon

${color #A548CC}Uptime:${color} ${uptime}
${color #A548CC}Kernel:${color} ${exec uname -r|cut -b1-8}
${color #A548CC}IP Address:${color} ${addr wlan0}
${color #A548CC}CPU Temp:${color} ${hwmon temp 1}C
${color #A548CC}Drive Temp:${color} ${hddtemp /dev/sda}C
${color #A548CC}Video Temp:${color} ${nvidia temp}C
${color #A548CC}Chipset Temp:${color} ${execi 8 sensors | grep temp1 | grep
low| cut -c16-17 | sed '/^$/d'} C

${color #A548CC}Phenom II:${color} ${freq_g}GHz (${cpu}%)

${color #A548CC}MEM: ${membar 3,100}${alignr}(${memperc}%)
${color}${mem} / ${memmax}
${color #A548CC}SWAP: ${swapbar 3,100}${alignr}(${swapperc}%)
${color}${swap} / ${swapmax}

${color #A548CC}ROOT: ${fs_bar 3,100 /}${alignr}(${fs_free_perc /}%)
${color}${fs_used /}/ ${fs_size /}
${color #A548CC}HOME: ${fs_bar 3,100 /home}${alignr}(${fs_free_perc /home}%)
${color}${fs_used /home}/ ${fs_size /home}