mtk313, I found simplier solution:
1) go to /opt/google/earth/free
2) rm -rf libcurl.so.4 libGLU.so.1 libnss_mdns4_minimal.so.2 libQtCore.so.4 libQtGui.so.4 libQtNetwork.so.4 libQtWebKit.so.4 # we will use system libraries instead of these ones
3) edit googleearth, add line "export LD_PRELOAD=libfreeimage.so.3" before line 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ./googleearth-bin "$@"'
4) copy libfreeimage.so.3 and plugins/ from http://goo.gl/GxLQw (and libphonon.so.4, if running on x86_64) to /opt/google/earth/free

Now GE 6 doesn't crash and looks native.