diff --git a/devtools/build_debug b/devtools/build_debug
index fb9df271..3f57ebf5 100755
--- a/devtools/build_debug
+++ b/devtools/build_debug
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ function compile_debug {
 # main code; we do not do any special cleaning, since believe that make tracks all dependences
 cd ./../src
 compile_debug all ""
+# the following causes a minor warning from Makefile, due to combination with DEBUG
 compile_debug all "DEBUGFULL"
 compile_debug all "FFT_TEMPERTON"
 compile_debug all "NO_FORTRAN"
diff --git a/devtools/release_sequence.txt b/devtools/release_sequence.txt
index 428a1a40..f999bba8 100644
--- a/devtools/release_sequence.txt
+++ b/devtools/release_sequence.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-Use some normal shell, under Windows - this can be MSYS. Then 'sh' can be omitted in the following commands.
+Use some normal shell, under Windows - this can be the one from w64devkit. Then 'sh' can be omitted in the following commands.
 
-1) Test for compiler warnings (about 10 min)
+1) Test for compiler warnings (a few minutes)
 > sh build_debug 2> log_debug
 
 2) Build and test the current source (a few hours)
diff --git a/src/Makefile b/src/Makefile
index 719b1aca..88d1e2b6 100644
--- a/src/Makefile
+++ b/src/Makefile
@@ -34,6 +34,14 @@ ifeq ($(filter else-if,$(.FEATURES)),)
   $(error make does not support else-if)
 endif
 
+# Parallelization options. The number can be adjusted according to the number of cores. Alternatively, it can be turned
+# of (overridden) by adding -j1 to the make invocation
+MAKEFLAGS += -j8
+ifneq ($(filter output-sync,$(.FEATURES)),)
+# this compromises clearness of the output with interactivity. --output-sync=recurse is the most robust, but the
+# ouput will appear only at the end (for such scenarios, one can use -s instead)
+  MAKEFLAGS += --output-sync=target --no-print-directory
+endif
 #=======================================================================================================================
 # Fixed definitions for non-compilation targets
 #=======================================================================================================================