I only just learned you can use the mouse in the TTY! (The Linux text-only console you get to by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1, F2, etc.)
Some applications that enable this are gpm and consolation.
consolation worked better for me, especially when in tmux; however, I still can't get scrolling with middle button and trackpoint to work, which is what would be the most useful for me. I don't know if it has to do with consolation, tmux mouse bindings, my particular ThinkPad model, etc. I can't find anything online about this, so if you've also dabbled in this, please share your experience!