Well, I just had to take my laptop in to work to get the firmware updated because BitLocker hiccuped, and locked me out of the machine. I'm doubting that you're going to be any safer on Windows in this regard, unless Corporate IT is NOT turning on drive encryption for Windows. (And even I would probably advocate for this particular policy.)
It wasn't a firmware update, if bitlocker detects hardware or disk config changes - it needs to be unlocked from the enterprise side. Most deployments have a self service portal so you don't have to bother IT for it.
As for installing Linux, that should be fine as long as you're not pulling company data on that - and it should be gated with whatever endpoint protection there is for Linux.
