Several recent works have developed a new, probabilistic interpretation for
numerical algorithms solving linear systems in which the solution is inferred
in a Bayesian framework, either directly or by inferring the unknown action of
the matrix inverse. These approaches have typically focused on replicating the
behavior of the conjugate gradient method as a prototypical iterative method.
In this work surprisingly general conditions for equivalence of these disparate
methods are presented. We also describe connections between probabilistic
linear solvers and projection methods for linear systems, providing a
probabilistic interpretation of a far more general class of iterative methods.
In particular, this provides such an interpretation of the generalised minimum
residual method. A probabilistic view of preconditioning is also introduced.
These developments unify the literature on probabilistic linear solvers, and
provide foundational connections to the literature on iterative solvers for
linear systems