You used to (as all other Unix distributions) be able to say "init S" or "init 5" or something, but the program seems to be completely missing in the latest version of Mac OS X! What is going on? Is this the seeming ongoing de-unixization of MacOS? Will I need to switch to Solaris or Linux to get my work done?
What happened to the command init?
Mac OS X uses launchd as the initial process. Most Linux distributions seem to be gravitating to systemd. There are other ways to get to single-user mode. Init 5 (transition to X-Windows/windowed environment, at least on SGI Irix and Solaris) is assumed by the modern system init methods, at least for desktops.
System V init scripts seem to be on the outs for modern Unix/Linux systems, not just Darwin (Mac OS X). I think they were too easy to compromise.
I would be hard pressed to assert that Darwin is being "de-unixized."