Hello Etienne
A. There is no 'simple way' to do this, you would probably need to compile from source
as far as I can tell.
B. You really want to read this:
http://www.freetype.org/freetype2/freetype-2.2.0.htmlC. You can search for a packaged release that is intended for YOUR Linux/Unix distribution (Fedora, RHEL, Unbuntu, Debian, whatever) i.e. a 'yum', .rpm, .deb etc,
designed to support the installer your Linux distro uses - such as yum or apt-get. This is like a precompiled Windows dll/exe, where someone else has worked out all the dependencies, and built a -ready-to-go package.
If you don't understand all/any of this, or are not interested in poking about at this level, this project may be 'a bridge too far' for you at this point. On the other hand, if you want to learn a lot - this could be an interesting adventure. If you are doing anything important with your system, you should learn about backing up before you decide to experiment.
With some luck, maybe someone else will have a better solution...
Good Luck