But it requires you to learn emacs. I thought I could just apt-get emacs and then from there do something to the effect of "install magit" and have a easy to use interface to git.

I half a day later I gave up. Never got to install magit.

I had this exact experience trying to install Common Lisp. Installed emacs and wtfed out of there 30 min later having learned nothing and feeling slightly traumatized.

I am just the opposite. I started using Git not long after it gained traction outside of the kernel project. Of course, it was primarily geared toward working in the terminal then. Some years later I had switched to Emacs and gave Magit a whirl. Even after going through quite a bit of its copious documentation, I just never felt comfortable with it. I guess I don't like being that far removed from the actual goings on with the repository.

I've since switched to Vim and happily use git at the terminal prompt. I doubt that will ever change as the interactive interface of various Git commands has improved.